The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey has tasked home owners at the Sakumono Ramsar site to halt all developments while the key stakeholders hold discussions on the regularisation of the over 4,000 homes that have been developed at the site by encroachers.
Failure to halt constructions over the next three weeks, he said, might see the Regional Coordinating Council and its partners moving in to pull down buildings that have been marked within the core zones as well as the buffer of the site.
The Minister gave the warning at a stakeholders forum organised by the Greater Accra Regional Security Council (REGSEC) in partnership with the Tema West Municipal Assembly and the Tema Metropolitan Assembly on Sunday (November 6, 2022) at Sakumono.
The meeting was aimed at discussing modalities for a roadmap on the regularisation of some 4,000 homes that have been identified to be out of the core zones as well as what to do with those within the core zones.
Over the last two decades, individuals and real estate developers, he said, have illegally acquired the lands developing nearly 2,500 acres of the 3,500 acreage site of which no form of taxes were being paid.
Mr Quartey said that whereas the government and the Tema West Municipal Assembly have over the last six months been struggling to get 15 acres of land in the community for the development of a hospital project under the Agenda 111 hospital projects of which, Tema West is a beneficiary, developers continue to destroy the ecology of the Sakumo lagoon by reclaiming the area for the building of homes.
“I can see very learned people, people of prominence and important people in society gathered here giving an indication of the profile of the people who have carried out the illegal developments at the site and I fear efforts by successive governments to put in place flood prevention mechanisms were being defeated,” he said.
Reiterating his resolve not to pull down any completed building until the modalities are firmed up, Mr Quartey stressed that until discussions and negotiations were done with, “I want to say here and now that not a single completed building will be demolished,” he said.
“But of construction goes on for the next three weeks while we go through the processes, I can assure that we will pull down buildings that have been marked within the core zones and the buffer in addition to those being constructed,” Mr Quartey warned.
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