A cleaner and bakery owner, whose four-bedroom house at Mpehuasem in the Greater Accra Region was demolished, is seeking justice a year after the ordeal.
Benson Osei Acheampong, who works at the University of Ghana, bought the 70 feet by 100 feet plot from the then Chief of Mpehuasem in Accra, Nii Sodjah Obodai, and secured an indenture for the land dated December 31, 2011.
An indenture, which he showed to the Daily Graphic, confirms that Nii Obodai gave the land worth GH¢40,000 to Acheampong on behalf of the Sanshie Family of La in the Greater Accra Region.
In 2015, Acheampong completed a four-bedroom apartment on the plot and moved into it with his wife, three children and three other family members.
But all that came crumbling down on May 18, 2022, when his wife called him from work to rush home and that there was an “emergency”.
Upon reaching home, Acheampong realised that his four-bedroom apartment had been razed to the ground without prior notice and without explanation.
His bread dough mixer and roller and brick-making machine were also destroyed as part of a demolition exercise, a situation which has brought the bread business to a halt.
The remains of the machines were taken away by the demolition team, which allegedly included police officers and government officials.
Narrating his ordeal to the Daily Graphic, Acheampong said he was only told that his structure was razed down because the land belonged to the government.
A search result from the Lands Commission in Accra dated August 19, 2022, signed by an Assistant Lands Administration Officer, Collins Tetteh, on behalf of the Regional Lands Officer, disclosed that the land was not state land.
Acheampong has since not been able to purchase his dough roller and mixer, which has a market value of GH¢50,000, and his brick making machine worth GH¢30,000.
He is currently living on the benevolence of the University of Ghana branch of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), which has offered him accommodation at the Legon Staff Village for a period of one year.
Acheampong is racing against time at his current abode to reclaim his land and the compensation he seeks for the demolished building.
He has petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to reclaim the land which has now been fenced alongside other lands in the enclave.
The Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, James Dadson, at a news conference in Accra on July 12 last year, told journalists that the land belonged to the state.
Acheampong said his dream was to build a four-bedroom house and move in with his family in order to expand his bread baking business.
Upon moving into the house, he procured a bread dough roller and mixer machine, commenced and expanded his bakery business which was fetching him a daily sales of GH¢2,700.
Acheampong later bought a brick making machine with the proceeds from the bread business to start selling bricks to real estate developers in the neighbourhood.
Those businesses, he said, were thriving until the disaster struck on May 18 last year.
Chief
In an interview, the current Chief of Mpehuasem, Nii Torgbor Obodai Ampaw IV, confirmed that his predecessor sold the land to Acheampong.
He added that he had sued the Lands Commission at the court, and had secured an injunction to halt development on the land due to a claim by the Lands Commission that the lands were for the state.
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