Some workers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) headquarters in Accra were yesterday attacked and manhandled by land guards who have encroached on their land.
The workers had taken journalists to the encroached land to see at first-hand how the land guards are protecting installations on the land believed to have been sold to a private company by the name WONTRIM COMPANY LIMITED, which is represented by one Mr Akumba.
Some journalists also had their fair share of the attack, with their recorders and cameras temporarily seized by the land guards.
During the press conference to protest against the encroachment of their land, the Chairman of the Central Committee of CSIR local unions, Mr John Hackmond Baffoe, explained that the company is said to have been originally allocated land at the Parks and Gardens in Accra.
According to him, Mr Akumba said the Turkish Embassy, who owned a land allocated to it at CSIR, said it did not want the land allocated to it at CSIR, but rather prefers a land at Parks and Gardens in Accra.
According to him, in the words of Mr Akumba, he swapped the land at the Parks and Gardens for the CSIR land and has since forcibly entered the CSIR land with land guards and started work on it.
Mr Akumba, he said, has claimed to have connections at the Flagstaff House, with support from the Chief of Staff, top government officials and even the President of the Republic, thus the CSIR cannot do anything.
He, on behalf of the workers, therefore, called on the Lands Commission to stop Mr Akumba from taking the CSIR land forcibly and, more importantly, withdraw the land guards from the land immediately.
He said the workers cannot co-exist with land guards, and if they fail to withdraw them, they would cease operations, and that, he stated, will be dangerous to the development of science and technology in the country.
Giving the background to the situation, he narrated that in 2008, the CSIR approached the Lands Commission for a lease, but the negotiations dragged on for some years and finally the CSIR and the commission came to an understanding that part of CSIR lands would be given to the Lands Commission.
He continued that there was also the understanding that part of the land would be allocated to the South African Embassy.
In all these understanding, he explained that there was a basic principle that all the properties of CSIR that would be affected would be replaced by Lands Commission before they take possession of the land.
The negotiation, he said, have stalled because the Lands Commission did not keep to its part of the negotiation.
He said the CSIR had originally agreed to keep 51 acres of the land. In an offer letter to CSIR on April 28, 2015, the Lands Commission had unilaterally allocated 46.98 acres to CSIR instead of the 51 acres.
Mr Baffoe said his company wrote immediately to the commission and vehemently protested about the allocation by the Lands Commission; the negotiations have not been concluded yet.
He concluded that the CSIR was allocated land at the Airport Residential Area in Accra by the colonial government in January 1956.
The land, he said, was subsequently covered by a certificate of allocation
