TMA frustrates TDC

Ms Elizabeth Mansah Banson, Acting Managing Director of the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), has accused the Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) of frustrating TDC's efforts of bringing sanity into Tema Municipality.

She said about a year ago when TDC impounded about 30 tipper trucks used in illegal sand winning at "Kanawu", a farming village at Adjei-Kojo near Ashaiman, the TMA ordered the release of the vehicles.

''The trucks are back to continue the illegal sand winning and are degrading the environment. When we seized the trucks that were loaded with sand at the site the TMA came to release them and this is very demoralising", she said.

Ms Banson said this when journalists from Tema called at her office for her comments on the illegal sand winning at Kanawu.

The journalists inspected the degraded farmlands and saw eight trucks being filled with sand.

Ms Banson said the TDC would revisit the issue and would inform the TMA as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on dangers of the situation.

Mr Claude Otoo, who acted as a spokesman for the farmers at the village, said the TDC allocated 100 plots of land at the area to individuals for farming and some of his colleagues are in crop/poultry farming while others are rearing livestock.

He said ever since they started farming, the activities of the sand winners had been posing threats to their activities.

Mr Otoo, therefore, appealed for police protection