Kwabenya residents protest against site of landfill

Residents of Kwabenya on Wednesday stated that the sitting of the landfill in their area was a contravention of the 1992 Constitution and they would not allow it to be located there as the controversy over where to dump refuse from Accra continues.

They said they were not completely against the landfill project, "but against the negative impact it would have on the nearby communities".

"It must be sited far from human habitation," Mr Isaac Amo-Smith, a spokesman for a group of protesters, told a press conference in Accra.

Vice President Aliu Mahama last Thursday appealed to residents of Kwabenya to allow the resumption of work on the Land Fill Sanitary Site Project, while the issues of compensation, environmental and other socio-economic problems were being addressed.

Alhaji Mahama, who met demonstrators at the project site, appealed for calm and tolerance, saying compensation would be paid to those who deserved it, while those who needed resettlement would be catered for.

However, Mr Smith said on Wednesday: "We want to make it clear to government that we will not accept any compensation or relocation."

He said Article 20 (2a) of the Constitution made it mandatory that compulsory acquisition of land by the state be accompanied by prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation to expropriated owners.

Mr Smith said it was in line with that provision that the Ministry of Lands and Forestry notified the Lands Commission that no executive instrument in respect of compulsory acquisition be signed if the Accra Metropolitan Assembly had not satisfied the requirement.

"Although the instrument to that effect has still not been published, the AMA and its contractor are working. "Mr Smith said procedures of the State Lands Act 1962 (125) on land acquisition by government was also not followed.

"Regulation 7 (2) makes it mandatory that prior notification be given to the owners or occupiers of the land before any entry for inspection, survey or valuation is carried out, yet no such notices were given and work has commenced."

Mr Smith said if the laid down procedures had been followed, the nation would not have been losing 37 million cedis daily for the past four weeks to the contractor for breach of contract.

Mr Smith said at the last meeting with the AMA and the Ministry of Local Government, it was agreed that a seven-member committee was to be set-up to supervise the project.

"Since we object to the project, we are not going to be part of that committee because this should have been done before the project's implementation as specified in the impact assessment," he stressed.

Referring to an Environmental Protection Agency letter dated July 12, 2001, Mr Smith said that the permit given to the AMA for the project was a provisional one and asked why it was becoming a permanent one without a project contract signpost being erected there.

"There is no sign board indicating who the client was, the contractor, the consultant and the nature of work being undertaken. "Madam Mary Dwamena, a resident, questioned the rational behind AMA's promise to compensate only persons whose lands had been affected since the whole community was affected.

"The whole community would have to live with the stench that would emanate from the site," she said. "We promise the AMA that we would neither release our inheritance today nor tomorrow," she said. "They should re locate the site instead of relocating the people," she said, and asked, "What comes first, people or rubbish."

Another resident Eno Ataa said those who were affected had also realised that the AMA was only "trying to throw dust into their eyes" by talking about compensation.

"If they had anything to offer us they would have done so before beginning the project as was done when the Akosombo Dam was being constructed.