Data Analyst and Researcher Eric Akwetey Addo is calling on the state to compensate residents affected by the recent demolition exercise at the Ramsar Site, while also holding state institutions accountable for the sale of the land.
Speaking with Adom News, Addo said it is unfair to treat the residents as illegal squatters when many of them acquired the land through transactions with government officials.
“The people who built at that area didn’t just go there and put up structures on their own. They bought the land from some government officials,” he explained.
He urged the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Ocloo, to pause and conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
According to him, the Minister should engage with affected residents to trace where and from whom they purchased the land. “This issue of demolishing properties can be solved if we establish the source.
Building a house is not easy, and people should not be made to suffer for what they believed was a lawful purchase,” he added. Addo stressed that accountability must go beyond the residents.
“The District Assembly and any state institution involved in the selling of that land must be held responsible,” he stated, noting that punishing only the buyers while ignoring the officials who facilitated the transactions sets a dangerous precedent.
He concluded that a fair resolution should address both sides, providing relief to displaced families who acted in good faith, while ensuring that any complicit officials face the appropriate sanctions to prevent future encroachment on protected lands.
Mr. Addo also noted that since the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Ocloo, has apologized for her earlier remarks about people from the northern regions, she should be forgiven.
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