...Guilty or Chickens Out

The Chief Justice, Her Ladyship, Theodora Georgina Wood, has finally yielded to public court of opinion by returning a state land she benefited from under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

The land originally meant for civic and cultural purposes belongs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Her Ladyship’s decision to revoke her interest in the land believed to be influenced by pressure mounted on her by the good people of Ghana, the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) and the Patriotic Youth Movement (PYM), especially on her neutrality in the determination of land cases relating to looting of state lands to cronies and party supporters by NPP government. PYM specifically has asked her to resign because she cannot be a player and, at the same time, a referee in such cases.

They have accused her and others of acquiring the land not through the laid-down guidelines established to be implemented through competitive bidding. Information available to the paper indicates that, The C J has officially communicated her decision to relinquish her interest in the land to Lands Commission and asked for a refund. However, she did not hide her desire to posses the land if the need be.

The PYM, in a press statement on 22nd September, 2010, has asked the CJ to resign honourably because she is part of a gang who benefited from the looting of state lands during president Kufuor’s administration.

According to the group, the likelihood of exhibiting bias towards the empanelling of the court to determine the outcome of land litigation between the republic and any of the conspirators is suspect.

The Movement argued that, the Chief Justice’s continuous stay in office amounts to travesty of justice because she has muddied herself much in, what it called, these corrupt deals and has no option but to resign honourably if she has any speck of decency left in her.

The statement disclosed that during the tenure of former President Kufuor, members of the NPP government, conspired and fraudulently acquired vast tracts of land belonging to the state.

They added that government officials in their bid to satisfy their insatiable greed and avarice, went on a plundering spree by allocating state lands in prime areas of the country to themselves and to their cronies in government, including prominent people like the head of the Judiciary, the then Speaker of Parliament and the former IGP of the Ghana Police Service.

The CJA on their part accused the CJ of throwing out her sense of integrity and decency and went out to grab the land at a ridiculous price. According to them, it is a travesty that the Chief Justice is the one who is appointing judges to sit on cases related to the ‘looted’ lands.

1n 1992, the Town and Country Planning Department with the support of the United Nations Commissions for Human Settlement (Habitat), prepared a five-volumes report on a Strategic Plan for the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. The Hon. Minister for Local Government at the time subsequently submitted a memorandum on the Report to Cabinet for approval.

The Town and Country Planning Department, based on the 1992 Accra Strategic Plan, prepared detailed Redevelopment Schemes for the identified areas in Kanda, Switchback, Ridge, Cantonment and Airport Residential Areas. The schemes received Statutory Approval in 1995 for implementation.

In the Scheme, a total of about 159 run down bungalows and flats in Cantonment, Airport, Kanda and Switchback Residential Areas were identified. Each was occupying an average of 1.2 acres of land required over fifty million old cedis (¢50,000,000.00) at the time to rehabilitate, while the occupants (civil/public servants) could not even maintain the huge grounds.

Prior to the main redevelopment scheme, the Ministry of Local Government through the Town and Country Planning Department, the Ministry of Works and Housing, SSINT and the Lands Commission had implemented the Cantonments Pilot Redevelopment Scheme to demonstrate the feasibility of the redevelopment approach. In that scheme, nine run down bungalows were demolished and a total of 67 houses built in their place. These were sold by SSINT to the general public. The general objective underling the redevelopment concept is the renewal of the old run-down neighbourhoods by demolishing some of these which were often located in the centre of huge plots; construct as many new houses as the plot can take at virtually no additional infrastructural cost. In the process the old Government bungalows that would be demolished would be replaced by new ones and substantially improved the physical environment. It was also to reduce government expenditure on infrastructure and services to newly developing areas.

Some benefits to be derived were that the redevelopment scheme achieved higher and optimum densities in these prime areas; ensured more efficient utilization of existing infrastructure; had a positive impact on the continuous sprawl of Accra;

It also provided government with new bungalows and flats; (income generated from the sale of the old bungalows were used to construct as many as possible , new bungalows to house the sitting tenants and additional government officials in virtually the same neighbourhood);

Released the latest values in the land to provide income for government. A valuation of bungalows and their associated plots done in 1995 showed the average cost of a bungalow at Thirty Million Cedis ( 30,000,000,00) and the plot it occupied as Two Hundred Million Cedis ( 200, 000,000 .00). The scheme had also improved the urban image of the old government residential areas in Accra.

The number of housing stock of both private and government increased in these prime areas.

The above stated brilliant objective and benefits of the scheme have however been subverted by the NPP’s looting brigade through sheer greed, selfishness and “abusua nkye di,” propelled by that political tradition’s property owning democracy under the watch of former President John Agyekum Kufuor.