Demolition of unauthorised structures underway at Aflao border

Unauthorised and shanty structures within the security zone at the Ghana Togo Border at Aflao are being demolished. The exercise is aimed at improving security and sanitation as well as to decongest the border parameters to enhance the activities of security personnel at the border.

The structures include those that housed the former State Construction Corporation (SCC) workers during the construction of the now abandoned border complex in the 1970's, workshops, saloons lotto kiosks in areas including the barracks and seashore.

Some property owners were hurriedly removing their structures to beat the extended deadline given them to avoid demolition. Mr Kow Amissah-Koomson. Assistant Commissioner, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), in charge of the Aflao sector, told the Ghana News Agency that the structures, apart from being dilapidated, had become hideouts for smugglers and criminals, posing serious problems to the work of the border security personnel.

Mr Amissah-Koomson said some of the structures on the adjoining beach of the border had become warehouses for smugglers who swim with the goods into Aflao from Lome and deposit them in the structures. He said besides, the dilapidated nature of the structures gave negative impressions about the country to foreigners visiting Ghana through the border.

On the SCC structures, he said if for 30 years that the job had been pending and the temporary structures of the workers served only as dens for criminals then there was no reason for keeping them. Mr Amissah-Koomson added that the measures were necessary to make the border area conducive for the 24-hour opening.

Meanwhile the CEPS personnel were filling waterlogged areas around the frontier. The Aflao branch of the Freight Forwarders Association have donated two wheel barrows, two shovels and standing brooms at the cost of 1.5 million cedis to the CEPS for the filling exercise.