Agric Minister hot over demolition at Nungua

The Leadership of the Nungua Traditional Stool has dragged the Minister of Agriculture, the Attorney General’s Department, the Ghana Police Service and the Legon Farm Manager to court for allegedly demolishing their building without obtaining a court permit.

According to them, the minister, Dr Afriyie Osei Akoto, erred by allegedly ordering the demolition of the buildings without legal authority after the said lands had been returned to the stool as far back as 2006.

Wor-Lumor Konor Borketey Laweh Tsuru, Gborbu Wulomo, the overlord of the Ga Dangme State, while addressing a section of the media in Accra on Friday said the minister ought to give the stool the respect that it deserves.

They have, thus, hauled him to court to justify his action.

“We are yet to lay hands on the documents that show the various entry points or demarcations of our lands. In view of this, we as the traditional leadership, has written to the Lands Commission which is the agency that deals with government acquisition to help us to be able to determine our various endpoints.

“Apart from that, I wrote to the Regional Police command for them to assist us visit the area to do the demarcation and so far we have had successful meetings with these institutions.”

All that, he said had been rubbished by the demolition exercise.

Court action

He said the stool has, thus, initiated a court action against the minister and has so far served the Attorney General in line with the one month statutory notice whenever the State is sued.

“We are in democracy and rule of law works and for anything to take effect it must be supported by law. The question we want to ask ourselves is did Dr Afriyie Osei Akoto, the Minister for Agric obtain a court order for the demolition exercise to be effected?”

He stated that, the area the demolition exercise was carried out under Police supervision was not part of government lands.

Land Development Act 1960

He said “the Act enacted in 1960- titled ‘Land Development, Protection of Purchaser’s Act 1960’ has not been reviewed, so upon what basis was the Minister of Agric acting to have a whole structure that has accommodated people for over 12 years demolished?”

“By law if you build a house and it gets to a level, you have no right to touch it, let alone for it to be there for 12 years. It got to a point they were even going to demolish the cemetery.”