AMA no more interested in Kwabenya landfill project

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) on Thursday disclosed that it was no longer going to develop the land at Kwabenya for the intended engineering sanitary landfill project.

Appearing before the Judgement Debt Commission (JDC) in Accra,Mr Graham Owusu Sarbah, Project Co-ordinator of AMA, said the Kwabenya land was acquired in January 2007 through an Executive Instrument for a landfill project to be funded by the International Development Agency of the World Bank.

He said the AMA, after acquiring the land constructed a road to the project site, but the residents started agitating and held series of demonstration to declare their disapproval of the project in the area.

Mr Sarbah said the Late Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, at a point in time, attempted to intervene to enable the project to continue but the residents were adamant.

He said the AMA also engaged a consultant to talk to the agitated residents but it also proved futile as the consultant was on most occasions denied entry to the locality by the residents.

Mr Sarbah said since the confusion over the project was unending, the World Bank, therefore, decided to stop financing the project.

He said a recent visit to the area by Dr Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, Chief Executive Officer of the AMA, revealed that the land had been encroached massively while electrical pylons had also been installed.

Mr Sarbah said the AMA had since written a letter to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development notifying it of its intention to discontinue the project.

He disclosed that the AMA would not give any compensation to the claimant of the land as it had been encroached and could not demolish those structures.

The JDC has, therefore, decided to summon the Chief Director of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to brief it on the state of the land and as to whether it had revoked the Executive Instrument.