Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Government and land owners for the Kwabenya Landfill
site in Accra are still locked in a tussle for compensation.
Currently, the government is unsure what to do with
the site which has been abandoned by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly although
it has E.I. 1 of 2007 covering it, the Commission of Enquiry investigating the
payment of judgement debts heard yesterday.
Kwesi K. Bentsi-Enchil Chief Valuer in charge of
compensation at the Lands Commission told Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau
that the commission was aware of a letter that indicated that the acquisition
will stay and it was either going to be used for a school or the school was
interested in using the site.
He said the assessed compensation in 2008 was
GH¢1.434,113.80 for 112.986 acres and that was communicated to the AMA.
Subsequently, Agnes Tetteh, owner of 0.16 acres which
formed part of the entire acquisition had petitioned the commission for
compensation and the Chief Valuer admitted that her they assessed her claim at
GH¢ 1,989.89.
“We advised the AMA on the assessed compensation.
The advice indicated that 251.6 acres was in conflict between two alludial
claimants. We haven’t heard from them yet and the assessment is still
outstanding. The Land Valuation Board has no knowledge whether it has been paid
or not.”
He alerted the commission that there had been some
developments since the valuation report was released saying “a letter from AMA
and from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) indicated
that the development of the Kwabenya Landfill Site was being discontinued.”
He said the letter titled “Implementation of
compensation payment to the project affected persons on proposed Kwabenya
Landfill Site” written on 21 January 2013, had indicated on September 2010 that
the AMA was discontinuing the landfill site due to agitations of the residents.
“The letters said the government was required under
the credit agreement to pay compensation to those affected on the proposed
site. Documents showed a sample of the payment voucher which indicated that
payment was to be made on behalf of the Ministry as ‘disturbance’ allowance for
those affected.”
He said the Land Valuation Division was not involved
in the putting together the said ‘disturbance’ allowance except the
compensation advice communicated to the AMA saying “we cannot confirm whether
or not our advised compensation assessment had been paid. Regarding what AMA is
doing about the compensation if the acquisition is being retained, we have no
advice.”
The AMA is expected to appear before the commission
to explain the status of the acquisition.
Later, the commission declined to look into the
matter of a Retiree, Edward Charles Kwame Asante who had petitioned to get his pension
allowance.
Mr. Asante could not tell how much was due him and the
commission said his case could not qualify for ‘judgement debt case’.
No comments:
Post a Comment