Suhuyini pushes for probe into Chief Director’s claim govt engages land guards

Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Committee on Lands and Natural Resources, Alhassan Suhuyini is pushing for a parliamentary probe into claims of the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources on government’s use of land guards.

The Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Prof. Patrick Agbesinyale during a meeting with the Lands and Natural Resources Committee of Parliament disclosed that the Ministry, the Police, and the Military engage a private company to reclaim and protect their lands at a fee.

But following backlash from the public over the Ministry’s alleged use of land guards, Prof. Patrick Agbesinyale stated that the said company cannot be classified as engaging in land guard activities.

“I can’t imagine me saying that government uses land guards to reclaim lands. If you mention land guards in the context of Ghana, we all know what it means. That is what we are trying to cure, so we cannot attribute that to our respectable security agencies, it is unfair. I, personally, take a very strong exception to that because I never mentioned the term land guards.”

However, Hon. Alhassan Suhuyini who raised the issue earlier in an interview demanded a probe insisting that the Chief Director is being contradictory.

“I you look at the response from the Ministry denying what was said at the committee it was signed by the same person. So if you read the statement and you consider the Ministry’s statement without taking note of the one who signed it, you may think that the Ministry is contradicting what was said by the committee, but it is actually the same. So, for him to be contradicting himself, we’ll need a third party in this case from the Ministry to address the inconsistencies that are coming from him. Because the more he speaks the more questions that are raised.

“Again, the Lands Commission has not spoken because, in all of this, the Chief Director in his last press statement said the contract is between Aynok Holding Limited and the Lands Commission. It is the Lands Commission that entered into this contract so we want to know from the Lands Commission if indeed it is the case that they procured the services of this gentleman or his company.

It is the region why I have filed an urgent question in Parliament, it is my hope that it will be admitted soon for the Minister to come to Parliament to address all of us and hopefully provide answers to questions that have not been answered yet.

I have also through the RTI written to the Lands Commission to demand the contract the Chief Director says they have with Aynok Holdings which by the way was formed in 2014 and yet the Chief Director even at the Public Accounts Committee yesterday repeated the claim that the Ministry has been in this contract since 2012 with this company.”