Pensioners Cry For Help

Accra - Eighteen pensioners of the Department of Rural Housing who are currently languishing in jail since May 15,2000 have appealed to the Head of State, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings and the Chief Justice to intervene and save them from what they call a raw deal.

The 18, made up of 14 men and four women, including a widow, were remanded by an Accra High Court for refusing to vacate their homes located at the Brigade Quarters at Lartebiokorshie on the court's orders.

The average age of the pensioners is 70 years. Some of them who spoke to The Accra Mail last week from their prison custody are beginning to show signs of weariness and depression, while a few have already fallen ill. Mr. Bannor, 85, is seriously ill. At their age and with weakened immune systems it is only a matter of time for them to contract various communicable diseases since they are crammed 40 in a room.

Narrating their plight they said they did not know when they would be released since the court has not fixed a date for a fresh hearing, neither have they seen counsel since they were remanded six weeks ago.

The frail looking pensioners explained that some of them occupied the houses since 1958 as members of Workers' Brigade under the government of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. When the Brigade was disbanded after the 1966 coup they were placed under the Department of Rural Housing and Cottage Industries, which they served until they retired a couple of years ago.

On retirement, they sent a letter to the Ministry of Local Government to sell the houses to them, a request the Ministry approved. They said the Ministry valued the houses at ?700,000 each taking their long service to the state into consideration. But for some strange reasons, which bordered on a connivance to deny them the houses, the Department of Rural Housing did not give them the first option to purchase the houses. Rather, they learnt to their surprise that the houses had been secretly sold at ?3 million to some other people.

According to them, the Department of Rural Housing later served them letters to quit the houses. "They started harassing us persistently and brought the police and some thugs to destroy the houses. They threw out our property and dismantled the doors and windows of our houses. Up till now our families are still sleeping in the open," they lamented to The Accra Mail.

They explained that when police and the thugs continued to harass them they insisted on their rights as occupants since 1958 and having served the country for 55 years each to have the first option to purchase the houses, but their plea fell on deaf ears. They were surprisingly arraigned before the High Court last year. They said it was during one of the appearances in court that they were remanded on May 15, 2000. They admitted that the High Court did ask them to vacate the houses, adding that, "we have nowhere to go. We want to buy and pay for those houses. If this is how people who have served the country for the best part of their lives can be treated, then Ghana is not worth dying for."

According to them, they have evidence that some of the houses have been bought by a girlfriend and some relatives of some top Directors of the Ministry of Local Government. "Is that how the aged should be treated when we started occupying those houses those who are ejecting us were not born," one of them bemoaned with tears streaming down his cheeks. Another prayed for God's intervention on their part.

In two separate petitions dated June 12, 2000, one to the Judicial Secretary and the other to the Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, wives of the detained pensioners said, "Mr. Francis Asante and the 46 others are prepared to pay for the houses."

The petitions which were signed by Juliet Opoku Bediako on behalf of the other wives said since they were remanded in prison custody, "no date was given for their next appearance before the court to be granted bail. At the time of sending this petition there was no sign of when they will appear before the court to go through the due process of a bail".

The pensioners, therefore, appealed to Flt. Lt. Rawlings and the Chief Justice to consider their deteriorating health, especially that of 78-year old Francis Asante and intervene to rescue them from prison custody. "We know Rawlings has not heard about us; if he hears about us he will use his good offices to save the situation."