GNPC admits wrong doing in Jomoro

By: Napo Ali Fussaini & Korku Devitor

An official of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) confirmed on Sunday that hirelings of the corporation had indeed destroyed coconut trees and other cash crops of some farmers in suburbs of the Jomoro district where the corporation had been trying to acquire lands for its operations.

Speaking on Joy FM, a local station in Accra, on Sunday morning, Victor Sunnu-Atta an official of GNPC who sought to deny portions of stories carried by this paper about the illegalities in the process adopted by the corporation to acquire the Jomoro lands, explained that the corporation was now in touch with the affected farmers to discuss compensations for them.

Later in an interview with this paper, Mr. Sunnu-Atta admitted that the action of their hirelings in cutting down coconut trees, rubber threes and other crops was wrong and an embarrassment to the corporation.

According to him the said workers were given express instructions by the corporation not to touch any crops in their demarcation exercise.

“The most annoying part of it was that they even carried the fruits away,” he disclosed, explaining that the farm owners were more angry because they knew those who carried out the destruction of their crops and carried their fruits home.

On the Monday, October 4 and Thursday October 7 2010 issues, your authoritative Lead published how GNPC in its quest to acquire lands for its gas processing plants and petro-chemical industry was engaging in acts described as illegal by community members, creating unnecessary tension in four communities of Egbazo, Bionyere, Kabla-Siazo and Dum-Suazo all in the Jomoro district of the Western Region.

GNPC had explained in a letter to the community dated March 16, 2010 that what it had done was to “merely identify the Bonyere and Kabla-Suazo area as a suitable location for the siting of a gas processing plant to be built in the near future," , adding that they were yet to establish the actual acreage of the land before contacting the land owners to be affected.

However, the laws of Ghana forbid such trespassing into people’s lands to carry out any activity without express permission from the owners, hence, legal experts were of the opinion that GNPC, by their own explanation, had erred in the Jomoro land acquisition drive, no matter the good intensions behind the acquisition.

Article 18 (2) of Ghana’s constitution stated that, “No person shall be subjected to interference with the privacy of his home, property correspondence or communication except in accordance with the law as may be necessary in a free and democratic state.”

This illegality, Mr. Sunnu-Atta conceded and asked reporters of The Lead to convey their apologies to all those, whose toes GNPC had stepped on unknowingly in this exercise.

He however disputed the claim that GNPC had demarcated round a 400 square kilometers, saying “the total land mass we have identified is about 22 square kilometers (4 kilometres by 6.5 kilometres).”

As to the alleged presence of local officials of GNPC, VRA, and a reporter of Joy fm in Bonyere on the night of Saturday, October 9, 2010, Mr. Sunnu-Atta explained that after reading the story put out by The Lead on the internet on Friday, Joy fm called to hear GNPC’s side of the story, “and that could explain why the Joy fm reporter went to Bonyere on Saturday night.

Source: The Lead