AFTER A protracted standoff between squatters, horse-owners on one side and executive officers of the Accra Turf Club including developers of a proposed five-star hotel, the Accra Racecourse was finally demolished yesterday.
It was a dawn operation which continued for many hours as policemen, drawn from various formations in Accra, stood guard to contain likely eventuality from the entrenched occupants.
An ejection notice was served the squatters and horse-owners to quit the premises to allow for the commencement of the project earlier this year but that was not honoured.
Horse-owners were asked to transfer their horses to a new location near Ashaley Botwe; a place they claim is not habitable.
Not willing to quit the place, the horse-owners wrote to government expressing dissatisfaction about the order for them to leave the premises, adding that they had reservations about the formalization of the transfer to the developers.
The demolition exercise commenced at dawn with a lone bulldozer which was later supported by another one.
A man and woman were seen shedding tears as the structures, which once served as their homes, were rendered to debris under the crushing weight of the bulldozer.
The horses, some of them champions, were agitated as the earthmoving machine moved back and forth flattening the stables and other structures, like the wooden fencing of the racing tracks.
Pockets of bemused persons stood discussing their fate as the operation lasted.
At first, the police would not allow entry or exit from the premises but later they reversed the order, paving the way for anxious journalists and others to behold the unfolding operation.
A certain Mr. Yaw Lee, son of the executed Air Force man, Kojo Lee, himself a horse-owner, told DAILY GUIDE that he was disgusted with the operation which he indicated had infringed on the rights of the persons living on the premises as he and some of his colleagues headed for the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
According to him, the new racecourse, which is being touted as an alternative to the demolished one, is an incomplete structure and does not come near the size of the current one.
“It has no standard stall for horses let alone a track,” he said.
He recalled an assurance and promise given by President John Agyekum Kufuor to the horse-race fans that a modern facility would be constructed to replace the demolished one.
“That place is not a racecourse. It is not near this one. We are saddened by what is happening,” he stated.
He flayed the executives of the Accra Turf Club for selling the racecourse for only $2million and quizzed, “Where is the money?”
Mr. Lee pointed out that the Cascade Group had not met their contractual requirements of the contract.
“We are going to CHRAJ”, he threatened; “what is going to happen to those living at the place since this place has been providing their livelihood.
I would have had no quarrel with what is happening had the right things preceded this development,” he said.
The demolished racecourse is going to be replaced with a 250-room five-star hotel; a project of Kempinski Hotels, at a cost of $49.4 million with funds from the Africa Development Bank and the ABSA Bank of South Africa with Ghana Government as the other financier. It is expected to provide jobs for more than 700 people.
The Accra Turf Club has been relocated to a site at Ashaley Botwe, where a modern racecourse is being constructed by the investors, Kempinski, at the cost of $2 million.
Mr. Joseph B. Baja, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Accra Turf Club, who is satisfied with the development, described the new place as “a first class facility”, explaining that when the PNDC acquired the site earlier, a place was given in exchange at Nii Boi Town but due to lack of funds, it was not developed.
Mr. Baja said after the construction of the Accra International Conference Centre, the Accra Turf Club approached the authorities to allow them to use the turf until a new place was found for them.
He said the club had always been aware that it would be relocated and they had always communicated that to the squatters.
The Kempinski Hotels Group has more than 55 luxurious properties stretching across Africa, Asia, South America, Middle East and Europe and was founded in 1897.
