DC EXplains Demolition

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Created on Monday, 27 January 2014 00:00

DC EXplains Demolition

AFTER RECEIVING backlashes from across the length and breadth of the country, the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) has come out to state the rationale behind the recent massive demolition of homes at Promised Land, King Solomon City and Adjei-Kojo, suburbs of Tema.

Hundreds of homes and buildings at completing stage were destroyed by the TDC last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday by a combined team of armed military and police personnel who supervised members of the TDC taskforce to demolish the thousands of Ghana cedis investment made by people in the area.

The destruction has received serious condemnation, especially from corridors of government, as members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Coordinating Committee in Tema have called on the President to immediate dismiss the Managing Director of the TDC, Joe Abbey, for his unilateral decision.

But Mr Abbey, briefing a section of the media at his office in Tema, rebuffed the condemnation on him and his outfit for not conducting the exercise with a human face.

According to him, “management of TDC did everything humanly possible” to ensure that persons who he described as “squatters” stopped encroaching on the government land by sending them several notices before the commencement of the demolition, but the developers were reluctant and continued putting up their dream homes.

“We gave them notice on their buildings with inscription; ‘Remove Within 21 Days, Or Face Demolishing – By TDC 06-05-13’ and ‘Final Warning, Remove By TDC 16-01-14’, but they did not heed all the warnings they gave them,” he explained.

The TDC boss explained further that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s administration acquired 63sq.miles of land from the traditional authorities within the area namely; Kpone, Tema and Nungua and handed it over to his outfit to create, develop and manage it to become the Tema Township.

According to him, since the TDC was developing the land in phases it was impossible to use the whole acquisition area at a go, and so people started taking advantage of the situation to sell portions of the land to unsuspecting individuals.

He said the presence of the armed military and police personal at the demolition was to forestall further attacks by land-guards on members of the TDC taskforce who had visited the area earlier to stop people from encroaching on the government lands.

Mr. Abbey further said “during one of such occasions, when the land-guards who were wielding machete and other dangerous implements attacked members of the TDC taskforce, they practically severed the wrist of one of the TDC taskforce members.”

He mentioned that TDC workers were always prevented by the land-guards from working on the lands, thus making it impossible to carry out their official responsibilities.

According to him, the encroachers had taken over 905 acres of the TDC lands and because it is a public institution, they had no option than to regularize it for them, causing them to lose huge income, which they did not want to do again.

The TDC boss bemoaned the constant attacks on his staff by land-guards; a situation that had led to their engagement of the service of military surveyors, though they had a team of surveyors at the TDC.

He noted that the exercise was to send a warning signal to the encroachers that the TDC would no longer tolerate the level of indiscipline that had been going on.

From Vincent Kubi, Tema Source: Daily Guide/Ghana