Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation has disclosed to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) public hearing in Accra that lands and estate properties of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are under attack by encroachers.

Such attacks and threats of ejection of staff of the CSIR from the council’s bungalows made them go on a recent demonstration in Accra.

According to the Minister, the encroachment is affecting the lands belonging to the Council in Tamale, Fumesua, Pokuase and the Residency of the National Research Institutions and other places.

Prof Frimpong Boateng, a former Chief Executive of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, told the hearing, examining the report of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts of Ghana, Public Boards and other Statutory Institutions for 2017, a team from the Ministry recently visited a property of the Council in Accra where they rather met some gentlemen on a property of the Council, who said the Lands Commission had sold the land to them.

The Minister said the Lands Commission did not inform the MESTI about the supposed sale, and neither had it received documents from the Commission on the said sale.

The Minister said the Ministry is investigating such supposed sale, and the Chairman of the PAC, Dr James Avedzi Klutse, insisted that the staff, who went on the demonstration should not leave the property they were occupying.

Prof Frimpong Boateng, who described himself as “big fan of creating walls” when he was Korle Bu, agreed to the construction of fence walls to protect lands belonging to the Ministry to protect them from encroachers.

It came to light during the hearing that failure to pay full compensation for such state acquired lands had contributed to such encroachment.