Tema Nii Armah Ashietey, Tema Municipal Chief Executive, has said the assembly is serious about the demolition exercise and warned residents to comply with the directive to remove all encroachments on public right of way, open spaces and service lines. "We are repeating our warning to people to remove these structures themselves or we demolish them and charge the offenders before court to retrieve the cost of demolition", Nii Ashietey said. He was speaking at a meeting with leaders of the task force to appraise the demolition exercise which started on Wednesday in a joint exercise with the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), the police and the utility services. Yesterday, the task force rolled a bulldozer over two houses at Ashaiman low-cost area and the motorway residential area while some lanes blocked with concrete at community four were re-opened. Even though a number of encroachments have been earmarked for demolition as far back as 1994, residents served with notices have ignored the warning. Nii Ashietey said the exercise is a decision of the Tema Municipal Assembly to bring sanity into the development of the township. He expressed concern about complaints by Mr Ishmael Ashietey, Member of Parliament for Tema east on the exercise, and said all the four MP's in Tema including Mr Ashietey are ex-officio members of the assembly and are bound by its decision. Mr Ebenezer Ayi-Bonte, Managing Director of TDC, said the task force is being humane and careful in the exercise adding that it will be difficult to apply the rule to the letter. This is because some structures existed before some roads in Ashaiman were expanded, bringing them close to the roads. However, owners of wooden structures which were converted to concrete buildings after the road expansion projects will have themselves to blame. Mr Ayi-Bonte cited Tulaku electoral area, where people given new plots to make way for the re-alignment of a water pipeline from Kpone to Tema, have re-settled on the pipeline, and said there would be no mercy for such people. At Tema New Town, where some buildings are standing in the middle of access roads to the Navy barracks, these would be demolished. The meeting agreed to send information vans around to further warn residents about the exercise. Gri
Tema Nii Armah Ashietey, Tema Municipal Chief Executive, has said the assembly is serious about the demolition exercise and warned residents to comply with the directive to remove all encroachments on public right of way, open spaces and service lines. "We are repeating our warning to people to remove these structures themselves or we demolish them and charge the offenders before court to retrieve the cost of demolition", Nii Ashietey said. He was speaking at a meeting with leaders of the task force to appraise the demolition exercise which started on Wednesday in a joint exercise with the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), the police and the utility services. Yesterday, the task force rolled a bulldozer over two houses at Ashaiman low-cost area and the motorway residential area while some lanes blocked with concrete at community four were re-opened. Even though a number of encroachments have been earmarked for demolition as far back as 1994, residents served with notices have ignored the warning. Nii Ashietey said the exercise is a decision of the Tema Municipal Assembly to bring sanity into the development of the township. He expressed concern about complaints by Mr Ishmael Ashietey, Member of Parliament for Tema east on the exercise, and said all the four MP's in Tema including Mr Ashietey are ex-officio members of the assembly and are bound by its decision. Mr Ebenezer Ayi-Bonte, Managing Director of TDC, said the task force is being humane and careful in the exercise adding that it will be difficult to apply the rule to the letter. This is because some structures existed before some roads in Ashaiman were expanded, bringing them close to the roads. However, owners of wooden structures which were converted to concrete buildings after the road expansion projects will have themselves to blame. Mr Ayi-Bonte cited Tulaku electoral area, where people given new plots to make way for the re-alignment of a water pipeline from Kpone to Tema, have re-settled on the pipeline, and said there would be no mercy for such people. At Tema New Town, where some buildings are standing in the middle of access roads to the Navy barracks, these would be demolished. The meeting agreed to send information vans around to further warn residents about the exercise. Gri
