Tension heightens over sale of GBC property

There is tension brewing at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation over management decision to reportedly release a large parcel of land belonging to the state broadcaster to a known politician at Akwatia in the Eastern Region.

According to workers of GBC, the large tract of land belonging to GBC is situated at the heart of the Akwatia Township in the region. This land, the workers noted was released to the former member of parliament of Akwatia to develop by the former Director General of GBC. The workers noted that this has allegedly been endorsed by the new director General of the state broadcaster.

The workers have vowed to resist the decision aimed at disposing off all landed properties of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

“GBC wants to give our land at Boadua Akwatia to Baba Jamal. He is taking it and replacing with a land in the bush somewhere in Topreman. This was engineered by Don Chebe and now being followed through by the current DG, supported by Head of Estate. We are therefore pleading with all the stakeholders to intervene before things get out of hand”, a worker of GBC made this disclosure.

When this paper called the Director General of GBC, Dr. Kwame Anoff-Ntow, and informed him about the issue he said, “We have not sold or released any land to Mr Baba Jamal he is not even part of the issue. What happened is our land at Akwatia is being encroached upon. So we received a proposal from the Denkyembour District Assembly that they could use the land to build a senior high school and give us another land at the outskirt of Akwatia. It is a proposal we are considering. We haven’t given the land to them yet”.

Asked why he would hand over a land in the heart of Akwatia when he could even use it to build estate houses for the staff of GBC, he said “we don’t have money to do that and we cannot allow private properties to be built on it.”

The workers however argued that documents covering the land were handed over to the former Member of Parliament, Baba Jamal, yesterday at Akwatia and wanted government to halt the takeover and the reverse the decision. They claim that Honorable Baba Jamal has built a two bedroom house on a portion of the land.

Some top officials of GBC, who pleaded anonymity with this paper, confirmed that Baba Jamal has indeed put up a three bedroom house on portion of the land saying, “With the digitization of our airwaves, there was a need to safeguard all our land. So when we heard that our land was being encroached on we rushed there and we went to see the former MP at the time. It was in 2015. He told us that he wanted to use the land to build a secondary school for the people of Akwatia. However the secondary school was moved to another place and there was no need to use the land for that purpose anymore. However, the MP told us that he still needs the land. He has put up a wall all over the large tract of land and put a care taker on it. I don’t know if the land has officially been handed over to him but what I know is that he has built a house on a portion of it.”

Meanwhile, latest information reaching this paper indicates that a plot of land owned by GBC at Association international School near the Airport Traffic Light in Accra has been sold. We will soon update our readers when our entire information is legally scrutinized.

The paper tried getting honorable Baba Jamal on phone but could not reach him as his phone was switched off. We are still following the story.