Soldiers seized my vehicle - Witness

Accra, March 10, GNA - Mr Yaw Owusu, a driver from Sekyedumase, who appeared before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) on Wednesday said soldiers seized and used his Cargo Benz truck until it got damaged.

He said this happened between 1985 and 1986 adding that he was forced to sell the vehicle out as scrap because it became unserviceable. The witness said in spite of the numerous petitions he wrote to the Air Borne Force (ABF) then under the Command of one Colonel Annor, no compensation was paid to him.

He said soldiers from the ABF seized the bus near Tongo in the Northern Region while he was on his way to load cattle to Kumasi. Mr Owusu said he abandoned the vehicle when he saw people fleeing for their lives following a confrontation between some maize haulers and members of the then People's Defence Committee (PDC).

He said the PDC men took his vehicle to Tamale and that later he was charged for smuggling maize though there was nothing in his vehicle by then.

The Witness said about a year later he was tried and acquitted by a military panel in a village near Bolgatanga.

He noted that though the vehicle was later released to him, he could not use it because it was almost totally damaged. Mr Owusu said he could not continue his business after he lost his vehicle, adding that this made life difficult for him resulting in the break up of his marriage.

He said he could not cater for his children especially their education adding that he travelled to Nigeria to work but nothing good came out of that.

He appealed to the NRC for compensation.

Mr Enoch Mate, a witness from the Anyabole Resettlement Centre in the Eastern Region also appealed to the NRC to help provide certain amenities including electricity and housing facilities to enhance their living conditions.

He said during the construction of the Volta Lake they were resettled at the Centre, adding that all the provisions made to ensure their welfare were denied them after the 1981 coup.

The Witness said though the Member of Parliament for the area assured them that some people had been appointed as trustees to manage the resettlement fund they had neither seen them nor heard anything from them.

He said their families had to sleep in decayed houses and under leaking roofs with their plans for a better education for their children being thwarted due to their inability to find a meaningful livelihood. Mr Mate appealed to the government to come to their aid, saying life at the centre was nothing to write home about.

Mrs Sylvia Boye, Member of the Commission asked the Witness to encourage the people at the centre to strive to make ends meet while government tried to support them.

Ex-Executive Chairman of Lands Commission wants entitlements paid

Accra, March 10, GNA - Mr Kwow Amanfo Sagoe, former Executive Chairman of the Lands Commission on Wednesday suggested that Government must borrow money to pay the necessary compensation to landowners whose properties had been acquired for government use but not paid for.

He described as a disgrace the huge debt owned landowners, saying, "we should borrow money to pay for the acquired lands."

"You can't talk of land as a free bounty", he said, in an answer to a question from Professor Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, a Member of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) on how to finance the huge debt on state acquired lands, when he gave evidence at the Commission's public hearing in Accra.

Mr Sagoe said the amount that would be spent for the payment will not be more than 60 per cent of the national budget.

He said between 1975 and 1993, the state did not pay for lands it acquired because the landowners rejected the offers from government because what was offered them were a pittance.

He said it was not until 1993 after a court judgment in Cape Coast that pressure was brought on government to begin paying for lands it had acquired, adding that the problem of non payment stemmed mainly from inflation.

Witness, who said he was now working as Land Management Consultant, said the government of the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) appointed him from the Stool Lands Boundaries Commission under the Ministry of Lands, where he served as Special Advisor, to the position of Executive Chairman of the Lands Commission in 1983.

He said despite the addition to his responsibilities, he was paid his old salary for the six years that he served in hat capacity before his retirement in 1989, although he was made to understand that he was a PNDC appointee and therefore resigned as a civil servant before taking up his new position.

Mr Sagoe said his letter of appointment stated the benefits he was to enjoy without putting figures on them, but added that the benefits of the position were comparable to that of the Chairman of the Chieftaincy Secretariat.

He prayed the Commission to recommend payment of the difference in his emoluments for the period he served as Executive Chairman of the Lands Commission.

Earlier, four other Witnesses, all farmers, from some communities in the Wheta Traditional Area in the Volta Region had testified, complaining that they were deprived of their farmlands, and also lost cash and food crops as a result of the construction of the Afife Rice Irrigation Project between 1978 and 1980.

One of the Witnesses, Mr Ben Datsomor, who was very furious, said he lost 10 acres of land on which he had 714 oil palm trees, some coconut trees and a bamboo grove.

He said the land cannot be cultivated again and that a number of follow ups they made through their chief, Togbe Ashiakpor, to have compensation for the crops destroyed had been to no avail. Mr Datsomor said the people affected were given an acre each of the project site as compensation, but some of the Witnesses who testified on the effects of the project said they did not benefit from such compensation.

He said the destruction has deprived them of their means of livelihood and prayed the Commission to recommend what is due them adding that they would not allow the project to continue until their compensations have been paid.

Other Witnesses, who complained of the effects of the project included Madam Yawo Ahiakpor from Wheta Todeme, who said she lost one and half acres of maize and cassava farm, in addition to the displacement of her family.

Mr Shadrack Kpodo from Wheta Exi, said he lost some palm trees; Mr Michael Agbodzi Agbetsiafa, from Wheta Maveh said his father died of shock, when he had a message that the construction works were to begin. He said his father lost his cattle kraal, a sugarcane plantation, as well a vegetable farm, without any resettlement. He prayed for compensation or resettlement.

Witness NRC about torture

Accra, March 10, GNA - Mr. Francis Holy Kwame Akorlatse, a Witness, on Wednesday told the National Reconciliation Commission that after intercepting his stationery at Aflao in 1985, Border Guards at Aflao used a knife they found in a bag of stationery to make a cut on his throat.

The Witness said after more than 27 years service in the Ghana Police Service he was dismissed 1980 and had his benefits paid in bits. Tearfully, he said, he took to dealing in stationery and bought his consignment from Accra, and it was when he was returning from one of such trips that the border guards arrested him on suspicion of smuggling.

He said the guards cleared him but asked him again to pour out the contents of his boxes at the market, and this time found a knife he had in a bag of books he was having.

Mr Akorlatse said the guards accused him that he could stab them with the knife, and after taking him to their office, they covered his face with the bag and used the knife to make a cut on his throat. He said they did not release the books they seized from him, and the boys whom he employed to help him carry the books to his home also ran way with the consignment they had.

Witness said five days later, a border guard from the Ghana side arrested him when he used an unapproved route to get into the Togo side of the border in the evening.

The Ghanaian border guard, who he said, was named Baba, brought him to the Ghana Border Guard office, and used a stick to beat his cheekbone and subsequently detained him for nine days.

Mr Akorlatse said, he, along with other detainees were made to work as latrine boys, and as he was one time returning from dumping human excreta, the Border Guards Commander, one Ashiagbor called him and gave him hefty slaps on both eyes.

"He accused me of smuggling and detained me in the cells again," the Witness said.

He said one Assistant Police Commissioner managed to release him after a doctor at a hospital at Aflao where he was sent had queried why he was being maltreated.

Mr Akorlatse said he developed cataract in the right eye, and a doctor who was attending to diseased eye, which he lost, inadvertently damaged the left eye when he was undergoing treatment for the right one. The Witness prayed the Commission to recommend appropriate recommendation for him. 10 March 04