TDC Moves To Avert Danger In Tema

Tema and Accra risk being cut off from electricity supply as a result of years of sand winning and stone quarrying at Kpone, near Tema. The high tension electric cables are at the risk of collapsing, thereby denying the two major business cities of electric power.

Sand winning and stone quarrying date back to the days of independence. The sand, stone and gravel winners have dug very deep under the high tension pylons carrying electricity from Akosombo to Accra, through Tema. The least impact of the wind could send the pylons to the ground leading to a total blackout in most parts of the country, especially towns drawing their source of power from Tema.

This could also lead to the loss of several billions of cedis to the state. Already affected is the Tema Free Zones Board enclave. The over 250 acres of land located off the Tema-Aflao Highway has been alarmingly degraded, to the extent that the authorities are sacking the people quarrying, including an Israeli company, Rolider Limited, from the site.

A visit to the site by The Herald at the behest of top officers of the Tema Development Corporation (TMA), revealed hundreds of huge galleys and very deep pits scattered, some of which have collected huge volumes of water, and are beginning to look like fish ponds.

Families with children of school-going age were seen in the pits, under the scorching sun, busily breaking stones and having them carted away in tipper trucks. The tipper trucks kept moving to and from the site, all day long. A team of TMA officers which conducted The Herald round the site insisted that something urgent must be done to reclaim the over 250-acres land.

The team was made up of Dorothy Asare-Kumah, William Koso, Alex O. Abrah, William Osei Asiedu, and Col. Ismaila Salifu, Public Relations Officer (PRO), Geodetic Engineer, Management Accountant, Physical Planner and the Head of Taskforce respectively.

The TMA team disclosed to The Herald that all attempts by the assembly to stop the activities of the diggers have been resisted, with most of the perpetrators reading political victimization into an otherwise genuine effort to rectify an environmental disaster.

A TDC taskforce headed by Col. (Rtd) Salifu, and stationed at the site, has also been met with a strong resistance from the diggers.

They disclosed instances where some of the pits collapsed on the diggers, resulting in severe injuries and deaths. This unfortunate incident has not discouraged them to relocate from the site. The team also showed the paper sites where the diggers have dug beneath walls constructed by some of the Free Zones companies to condone off intruders.

What is shocking is that the Israeli company which is developing a $20 million landfill site near the place for the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), has in the night been scooping sand from the pits secretly in the night although in its contract the authorities, it has been specified that the company was going to buy its raw materials elsewhere to construct the landfill site.

The contract is being executed under a World Bank project. Plans are afoot to send a bill to the Israeli company to pay for the raw materials it has scooped from the site, so far.

The Union Chairman of the Kpone Stone Quarry Association, John K. Siabi, who was questioned by The Herald on their activities, said that the association has had several meetings with the TMA on ending the quarrying there.

He said they had agreed to vacate the site, and that what is holding them back is the non-payment of compensation which the TMA promised to pay them since 2005.

The association, he claimed, has 516 members. Both the TMA and TDC have their officers stationed at the site, collecting revenue from them, Mr. Siabi said, and wondered why it has become difficult for TMA to pay them the compensation. He said his members are ready to relocate as soon as the compensation is paid.

He asked to be given up to December 31, 2011, to clear what their stockpiles for sale. Meanwhile, documents exchanged between the diggers and TDC, and cited by The Herald reveal that the diggers, demanded and were granted extension periods many times to enable them to clear their wares and leave the site, but they dishonestly keep operating.