Residents of condemned blocks at Kaizer flats locked out

The once vibrant vicinity of Kaizer Flats, Community Four, Tema now lies stone cold as residents have been locked out and prevented from accessing its “decayed and floors, doors and windows.”

Blocks 407, 408, 410 and 415 had been declared inhabitable by engineers hence the decision of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) backed by a court order, to National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) seal all entry and exit points on Thursday, February First.

The Ghana News Agency observed that most of residents left before the exercise while the few people around were drowning their sorrows in alcohol and contemplating where to spend the night.

“We thought that with the advent of a new government, such injustice would happen but here we are- refuges in our country. I am not going to vote again,” Mr Issac Boakye told the Ghana News Agency with an alcohol induced slur.

A former female resident condemned NADMO for ignoring them and called for government intervention.

Mr Isaac Lomotey, the Spokesperson for residents of condemned blocks at the Kaizer Flats, appealed to government to look for alternative places for them to reside.

“The government should come to our aid and force Tema Development Company (TDC) to get us a place to sleep. Most of the people hanging around are friends and I don’t think it’s the best. They had wanted to sleep in the opening here, but I have talked out of it,” he said.

He said this when the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the Kaizer Flats to see what had become of the February 01 ultimatum by the court to residents to vacate the facility.

Mr. Lomotey said, “TDC came around 6 am with the military, police and their taskforce, but ninety per cent of the people were gone, leaving just three persons.”

He added that the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) took three people to former Akodjo Basic School at Community One, Tema to sleep in the classrooms for the meantime.

He said the court ordered TDC to give the affected residents the first option when they finished constructing new flats in the stead of the dilapidated ones, adding that, “So when we go there and there is no MOU to that effect, we have to go to court.”

During an inspection tour by NADMO, Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) and Tema Development Corporation (TDC) officials prior to the eviction exercise, the Greater Accra Regional NADMO Director, Mr. Archibald Cobbina said, “As a nation, we need to wake up to certain realities. We shouldn’t be a nation that would wait for disasters to happen before we see what could be done to help the situations.”

The battle to evict 187 residents from four blocks at the Kaizer Flats had been going on for many years now.

It all started when engineers from the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AESL) declared the four blocks dangerous for human settlement which prevented the Tema Development Corporation from selling to or receiving rents from the affected persons.

Since then all efforts to eject the residents had been met with one court suit or the other, with the court finally ruling in the favour of TDC.

Enforcing the court order in 2017 faced another resistance which caused the courts to grant another six months grace period for residents to find alternative accommodation, and when that elapsed another one month was given, which expired on the 30 of January 2018.