Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, October 23, 2014
The head of surveys and mapping at the
Lands Commission says the maps presented by claimants listed to be paid compensation in the Volta Basin Flooded Area were all
forged.
Wilson
Kwasi Opoku who is the acting Director of Surveys at the Lands Commission told
the Commission of Enquiry investigating the payment of judgement debts
yesterday that the authorities should not have sanctioned payment to the claimants
based on the documents they presented especially the maps indicating where
their lands were flooded when the Akosombo Dam was constructed.
Cabinet Approval
Most of
the processes for compensation were done between 2004 and 2008 even though some
claims dated back to the 1970s but the actual payments started 2009.
So far,
about GH¢71 million has been paid to the various claimants and the disbursement
of the remaining GH¢67million has been put on hold to enable the government
deal with discrepancies in the payments.
Cabinet
in July 2008 had approved a consolidated amount of compensation totaling GH¢138
million for various stools/families in Pai, Apaaso, Makango, Ahmandi and Kete
Krachi Traditional Areas and about 57 groups were said to have benefited from
the amount.
Discrepancies
When
Sole-Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau showed Mr. Opoku some of the maps the
claimants used to secure the huge sums, the Chief Surveyor responded that his
department did not vet the maps submitted by the Volta Basin claimants.
“If the a
licensed surveyor has not looked at the maps there is no way the Regional Lands
Surveyor will even approve it,” he insisted.
He said although
some of the maps had been approved by a Licensed Surveyor, it did not bear the
Regional Lands Surveyor license saying “there is no way such documents should
have been approved.”
Fake Maps
Mr.
Opoku, flanked by George Okwabi Frimpong, a Geomatic Engineer in charge of
Operations, further told the commission that it was impossible for the
claimants to extract a map indicating their land size from a topo sheet and
present them for payment as they did.
“There
should be pre-existing maps to be able to get current maps out of the submerged
areas,” adding that “the documents before the commission suggested that there
was a general valuation for all the inundated areas irrespective of the nature
and value of the lands.
“The whole
situation is baffling. The Volta Basin job was not properly done.”
Some of
the witnesses who have appeared before the Sole-Commissioner have been
tendering in evidence site plans that did not have dates but had purportedly
used the same documents to claim the money from the Lands Commission.
Apau Shocked
The judge
has variously expressed shock at how the Lands Commission could have proceeded
to order the release of the various amount of money to the claimants based on
the documents the witnesses are tendering before the commission.
He did
not understand why communities that were resettled by the government in the
1960s, given communal lands and paid compensation for crops destroyed by the
Volta River floods could turn around to claim compensation almost 50 years later.
Asetena
Mensah factor
All the witnesses have been telling the
commission that one Nana B.K. Asetena Mensah, a leader in the communities in
Krachi, was the one who had commissioned Kwadwo Ababio & Co, a consultant
and surveyors to survey the submerged area out of which the individual plotting
were done.
The commission has made it clear that
Nana Asetena Mensah never came forward to make any claims. Rather, he delegated
the Krachiwura Nana Mprah Besemuna III, a retired Police Commissioner, who he
said had no stake in the lands, to lead the chase for the compensation.
The Krachiwura has since testified
saying that he represented the Kantakofore Clan in the whole transaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment