HFC Land Guards On Rampage

...as Tema Reg. Police Waits For Blood-Bath To Act

By Cletus Abaare/ The Crystal Clear Lens

Residents of Atadeka, a suburb of the newly created Kpone katamanso district assembly were gripped with fears and panic when a group of land guards invaded the offices of a real estate company in the area, Setho Classic Engineering Company Limited.

The criminals who have been allegedly recruited and trained by HFC Bank Limited after it lost an injunction application in the High Court to restrict the Company perpetrated the act on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

The story about how yet-to-be-apprehended land guards openly invaded the company two times in two months which made front pages of many newspapers recently and the Tema Police reluctance to apprehend them is yet a mystery.

Many advocates and the police institution believe that it is high time that land guards drawing the blood of innocent citizens and preventing rightful owners of land to development those lands be apprehend and deal with according to the laws of the country.

But strangely, the Tema Police command led by top officers are happily dinning and winning with such criminals almost sheepishly and allowing their criminal activities to cause destructions to valuable properties.

According to our sources who witnessed the violent act said the Land Guards invaded the company premises on motorbikes and unregistered 4 X4 vehicles numbering over 20 persons welding different types of guns including 3 AK47 and started causing harm to the some workers of the company on duty without any provocation.

‘’During the incident attracted the Police patrols of the Tema Patrol team that was Patrolling the area but to surprise of onlookers and panicked residents, the patrol team upon seeing the armed criminals fled the scene creating more space for the criminals to continue mending out their brutalities to innocent people’’, an eye witnessed told this paper in condition of anonymity.

When this paper contacted the Chief Executive Officer of Setho Classic Engineering Company Limited, Mr Seth Kwame Sallah on the criminal issue, he said management of the company were still in shock as to why the land guards could engage in violence over an issue which has been dealt with by the court and still pending in court.

‘’the incident has left residents of the area living in fear because they do not know the next the step the land guards will take after they are deserted by their employers’’, he said

He continued that the same attacked was launched on his workers few months ago and immediately the land guards were arrested and sent to the police station, a representative of HFC bank limited went and secured police bail for them and offered them an undisclosed amount of money.

According to him it has been the usual attitude of the land guards to often attack residents by beating them to the extent that they even issue death threats.

Although he said some of them have been identified and reported to the Tema Regional Police, they are still free men and plying their bloody trade, without looking over their shoulders as they clutch their firearms.

“I am calling on the Ghana police to clamp down these because b they have made buying land in the nation’s capital and its environs akin to denying one sleep and courting death.

Land guarding is now an industry fetching so much money for those engaged in it. They build their bodies and acquire firearms from the underworld ready for the business of death. That is how they (mostly youth) get engaged in the nasty ungodly business”, the young CEO lamented.

He noted that Land administration especially the land commission in the country needs a total overhaul with the chiefs as custodians of this natural resource playing a crucial role.

Front Page Comment

The Burning Anger In NDC Supporters

… JM and NDC leaders must listen

Last week Monday, September 1, 2014, edition of the Crystal Clear Lens carried on its front page a banner headline, “ECONOMY TOO HARD TO BEAR” with a sub-headline “NDC supporters tell JM” was greeted with mixed reactions from known and unknown activists of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), who called into our offices.

Whilst some callers lauded the publication in the paper for publicly sending the message of anger and frustrations to the government for speedy address, others felt that we could have channeled the message to the government without making it public.

We welcome the reactions from both sides wholeheartedly and we want to state unequivocally clear without fear or favour that the interest of the majority of Ghanaians and NDC is paramount.

Therefore, whilst we will continue to propagate ideals and policies of the NDC, it behooves us as a voice for the defenseless to ensure that the people the NDC administration governs do not fall victim of incompetence of some party functionaries.

It is undeniable fact that the Crystal Clear Lens has a tradition to hold its own party leaders to campaign promises we made to the people who voted the NDC into political power.

Judging by the NDC ideals of social democratic agenda, the party must be sympathetic and friendly towards the masses. The state must support the helpless so as to reduce suffering in society.

But, sadly, what is happening now is far from our principles. By the actions of our current leaders led by President John Dramani Mahama, it appears we have thrown our ideals into the Korle Lagoon, where living things hardly stay alive.

The introduction of the automatic adjustment system for determining prices of petroleum product and utility tariffs by the government has deepened the plights of ordinary Ghanaians including the large members of the umbrella family that some of them are virtually losing hope in the government.

Although some party people may disagree with us, we cannot afford to engage in devilish sycophancy at the detriment of the electoral fortunes of the great NDC in the future.

It is the duty and responsibility of every true Akatamansonian to protect and defend the NDC against forces of attacks, whose preoccupation is self-aggrandizement.

Interestingly, some of our NDC brothers and sisters hold an erroneous impression that Ghanaian electorate would never vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the defeated presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) because of his past deeds. Therefore, they can choose to misbehave towards the masses when the party is in power, and go unpunished.

Some of these NDC leaders must be joking. We remember vividly, the countless times we launched a web of attacks on former President John Agyekum Kufour, then presidential candidate Kufour of the NPP. We called him all sort of names, but when the Ghanaian electorate decided, the NDC could not stop them.

We would be here and Nana Akufo-Addo would be sworn-in as the 6th President of the 4th Republic of Ghana should the precarious economic conditions continue.

Ghanaians are really suffering. Ghanaian businesses, especially the young once are dangling because credit facilities that support them are no longer there due to daily increase in price of goods and services in the country.

We know President Mahama is not sleeping, but so long as the plight of the ordinary Ghanaians is unabated they would hardly see something good in his administration.

We know the President is undertaking infrastructural projects around the country just as the late President, Prof John Evans Atta Mills had done. But the Crystal Clear Lens is appealing to him to stop hazard increase in prices of utility and fuel price which eventually lead to further increase transport fares and deepening economic conditions in the country.

Mr. President, if you intend to seek re-elections from the good people of Ghana, then act now.