31st December owes ?336 million

Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’ 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM) is facing an ejection threat for its inability to pay rent on its headquarters in the plush Ridge Residential Area in Accra for the last four years.

The DWM which dominated the political landscape of this country for a greater part of the Rawlings era, with its Gari factories and pre-school projects is said to be in dire straits.

Information available to The independent point to the fact that DWM owes a huge amount of money in rent for the period stated. Conservative estimates put the rent around 336,000,000 million cedis. This figure, according to some key players in the real estate sector is based on the fact that rent on houses in the Ridge area go for about 1,000 U.S dollars a month.

The land lord, The Independent gathered is no more in a compromising mood to re-schedule the payment of the rent. Attempts by the landlord to get the DWM to pay the accumulated rent for had always met some executive bluff from the hierarchy of the Movement.

He thus decided to take advantage of the new dispensation to demand all outstanding amounts due him by the DWM. However, The Independent learnt that, notwithstanding the air of positive change blowing, the stake holders in the DWM are still holding back the accumulated rent.

With the that reticent posture even in the current dispensation, the Landlord thought the only way possible to have back his building is to demand his building. He has threatened to go to court.

DWM operatives that The Independent spoke to yesterday, expressed surprise at this paper’s ability to lay hands on such information. “Who gave you this information? Such things are worrying us,” one of the operatives told our reporter.

Numerous calls to the DWM offices in an effort to get any of the big wigs to speak to us on the rent issue drew blanks as all the people who could speak to us were said to be out. Eventually, when we got in touch with one Victoria, she was more worried about how we laid hands on her cell phone number and faded off the interview.

Activities of the Movement has plumetted since the NDC lost the 2000 elections.

A visit to the headquarters by our reporter- Andrew Edwin Arthur last April revealed that the premises of the Movement is nothing short of a car park. Dozens of cars were sighted on the premises with virtually no activity going on.

Since January 7, the DWM which overshadowed the National Commission on Women and Development (NCWD) in all aspects of women’s issues because of the status of the former First Lady has lost all its glitter.

The usual criss-crossing of the country by Nana Konadu has dipped to non-existent levels as she has found a new passion in accompanying her husband on his travels abroad.

With such astronomical debts staring the DWM in the face, observers believe that the death knell has began sounding for the collapse of what was seen by many as a Quasi Non Governmental Organisation (QUANGO) and a tentacle of the National Democratic