Man Chases Gov’t From State Bungalow

A tussle has emerged over a state owned bungalow, between the government and a beneficiary of the state property-looting government of the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The property, which is known as Bungalow 56, is adjacent the College of Physician and Surgeons building, off the Independent Avenue, near the Liberation Circle.

The Herald gathered that the bungalow was sold to a certain Mr. Kumi by the NPP administration a couple of years ago. However, since the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government assumed office, its attempts to reverse the transaction has been met with fierce resistance from Mr. Kumi, who, we are informed, has also benefitted from other state-owned property in and around Cantonment.

Recently, some Chinese were spotted on the property, and were chased out by the state security operatives. A visit to the site, revealed that the disputed owners of the state bungalow, have ripped off the windows and roof of the building and are rehabilitating it for their intended purpose.

A warning, which was subsequently erected on the property by the government, asking people including Mr. Kumi not to venture onto the land, have been disobeyed.

What is more alarming is that a notice, which had been placed at the site, indicating the ownership of the bungalow as government, had been removed by some unidentified men suspected to be cronies of Mr. Kumi.

Details about Mr. Kumi are sketchy, but information picked up by The Herald indicates that a lots of government properties were sold to him by the Kufuor Administration.

Meanwhile, The Herald has begun its investigations into the activities of Mr. Kumi, and how many properties he got and how he came by them.

This development comes on the heels of a tour by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mike Hammah and some officials of the Lands Commission and his ministry, to some state-acquired lands that have been encroached upon in the Greater Accra Region.

He deplored the flagrant abuse of law and wanton encroachment on state lands by private developers across the country. The practice, he told the media, if not halted, could pose a threat to the future growth and development of the country.

He said it was unacceptable for state institutions, for which lands had been acquired, to sit aloof and allow state lands to be taken over by private persons.

He, therefore, charged state institutions to adopt proactive measures at protecting state lands. The places visited included the South Legon Residential area, Achimota Forest and the Achimota Senior High School, the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) at Kwabenya, the Adenta site for Civil Aviation, the site for the construction of a two-storey seismology earthquake monitoring centre and the Pantang site for Vodafone Ghana Limited.

On the tour with the Minister included Mrs. Leticia Acquah; Chief Lands Officer at the Lands Commission; Alhaji Hakari Nyari, Director of Public Vested Land Division of the Lands Commission and Mr Joseph Odametey, Director of Survey and Mapping at the Lands Commission.

Mr. Hammah said the indiscipline regarding the flagrant violation of the law to build on government lands needed a multi-pronged approach and inter-sectoral collaboration to deal with, adding that a radical transformation in land acquisition was vital in that direction.

The sector Minister, who was worried about the current state of state lands, underscored the need to deepen the knowledge and understanding of all stakeholders on the subject. In addition, he said judges needed to be engaged on the issue in view of the threat it posed to the future of the country, adding that his visit was to establish the level of encroachment and then see how to address the problem.

Managers of the National Dog Academy, a facility that is supposed to be used for the training of dogs, said a third of the land had been lost to encroachers.

It was also realised that lands belonging to the Achimota Senior High School had been heavily encroached upon not only by private developers but also the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), which had turned part of the school land into a dump site.

One notable area was the school farm that had been taken over.

The Managers of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) said about 30 per cent of the 2,002 acres of their land had been encroached by developers. The sector minister told the Director General of the commission, Prof. Edward Akaho to ensure that the place was fenced in order to protect the remainder of the land.

Prof. Akaho said the authorities had started planting palm trees along the boundaries to protect the land, but the minister said the trees could be uprooted by encroachers. He said the country stood the risk of being sanctioned by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if it violated the nuclear treaties and conventions it had signed with international bodies.

The country, he said, needed to develop nuclear science and technology to address its numerous problems. At the construction site for the earthquake monitoring centre, the Director of the Geological Survey Department (GSD), Mr John Agyei Duodu, said the centre would be completed in July next year.

The centre, he said, would have a lot of potential for the country, adding that it would also have classroom facilities for the training of seismic engineers.