The encroaching structure
The Head Pastor of the Charity Church, Rev. Samuel Kordie, has dared the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, to run a bulldozer over his church located at the Ramsar site around Community 12 in Tema.
According to him, the minister will live to regret his action if he makes good his threat.
“Do you remember what happened in the Bible when some people caused destruction to a church? That is what will happen to the Greater Accra Minister if he dares touch my church,” he said.
This follows a complaint by concerned residents in Community 12 about noisy activity and destruction of a portion of the Ramsar site to construct a church and a block factory by the pastor.
A petition sighted by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the pastor had caused destruction to seedlings collected from the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) for tree planting day by former Assembly Member of the area, Captain Ben Edmond Duah (rtd), a resident of Community 12, to plant around the Ramsar site.
“I planted the first two around my house with some around a church squatting on the Ramsar site with the intention to continue the next day.
“The next day, while waiting for TMA to come so we continue with the exercise as pre-arranged, a gardener who came to assist me came and I gave him some of the seedlings to plant around the area of the first two seedlings I planted. Strangely, he was confronted by some members of the church and wife of the pastor who snatched the seedlings from him and prevented him from planting them. “Additionally, a member of the church went and uprooted the seedlings bought with state money I had earlier on planted and threw them away,” he disclosed.
He noted that though he lodged a complaint against the wife of the pastor and the members of the church who engaged in the destruction and confrontation, nothing came out of it.
“It will be acknowledged that as an immediate pastor/ Chairman of the Sakumono Ramsar Preservation Committee, I have persistently complained about the degradation of the site by the church to the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), but it has all been to no avail. In the face of TMA’s inability to act, the church has grown horns and now laying claim to that portion of the Ramsar site,” he added.
It is against these reasons and among others that he is calling on the Greater Accra Regional Minister and the TMA to save the Ramsar site from encroachers and also act to protect the Ramsar site and the Wetland Management Regulations (1992).
He has, therefore, called on the Greater Accra Regional Minister not to relent in ensuring that persons, including the head pastor of Charity Church, who have taken over these sites are dealt with.
Interestingly, when the head pastor was contacted by DAILYGUIDE via telephone on the issue, he refused commenting on how he came to the area though he is laying claim to the land.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, has warned encroachers about possible demolition of their structures.
By Vincent Kubi