THE GREATER Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, has, on behalf of government, assured management and staff of the Animal Research Institute of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR–ARI) that government would do its best to resolve the menace of encroachment on their lands by land guards.
The Regional Minister, on Tuesday, led a high powered delegation of officials from the Greater Accra Regional Security Council (REGSEC) together with top officers from the Ghana Police Service (GPS), Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), as well as officials from the Greater Accra Directorate of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NaDMO) on an inspection of the said encroached lands located at Fafraha-Katamanso in Accra.
The inspection followed complaints about encroachment on the lands by some unscrupulous individuals purported to be land guards.
It was discovered during the visit that there were several structures at various stages of completion scattered across various parts of the land.
There was also evidence of a foundation being dug right in front of the CSIR-ARI Veterinary Clinic, which is the only one of its kind serving the entire community and its environs.
In the course of the exercise, some men, numbering about six and suspected to be land guards, were arrested and interrogated by officers of the Ghana Police Service after they had made attempts to flee.
Some of them claimed to be only caretakers for their masters [supposed land owners] while others said they were merely labourers who had been commissioned to work.
Director for CSIR-ARI, Dr. Ebenezer Ansah, lamented bitterly about how the activities of the land guards affect their work, describing the situation as “terrible”, and added that their activities greatly impeded their work on daily basis.
According to him, his outfit was able to erect a wall to cover 200 acres of the land, which was about 1,000 acres in total.
The land guards however still broke into the 200 acres they had walled, and have so far claimed about 50% of the [200-acre] land, bringing the total size of land being occupied by encroachers to 900 acres.
On his part, the Regional Minister said his office had closely monitored and taken note of, within the media space, complaints by some civil servants that government lands were being encroached upon by persons without permits.
CSIR-ARI, he noted, officially brought the matter to the REGSEC and so he had come with his team to assess the situation for themselves.
“It is sad the way people have the effrontery to encroach upon government lands and build on it,” he decried.
“We will go back, ensure that we go through all the processes, and very soon, by God’s grace, Ghanaians will see our action,” he said.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio