The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, responsible for Lands and Forestry, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio, has charged the Adenta Divisional Police Commander to protect government lands at Amrahia, a suburb of Accra, from further encroachment as the Lands are being encroached with impunity.

Mr Benito Owusu-Bio instructed the police when he paid a working visit to the Amrahia Dairy Farmlands to inspect the level of progress in the proper demarcation of Lands and further handing over to the rightful owners. He explained to the commander government’s intentions of ensuring that the policy and promise made to hand over a portion of the acquired lands to the preacquisition owners, is followed.

“As we speak work is almost complete on keeping this promise. But others are still trying to ruin government’s plans and we cannot sit and allow that happen”
Benito Owusu-Bio

At the sight of the level of encroachment, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio tasked the Commander saying, “ensure that no further works continue here until the lands are handed over to the rightful owners. Get bulldozers and demolish all these walls as soon as possible”.

The deputy lands minister instructed the police to as soon as possible, put up a police barrier to protect the surveyors who will be demarcating the portions of lands. He further advised them to also ensure their work is not interrupted by the actions of land guards and other intruders.

Mr Owusu-Bio stated that their protection will go a long way to ensure that there are enough lands to build affordable houses for government agencies.

Additionally, he instructed the surveyors to commence work as soon as practicable and mount up boundary pillars to properly demarcate the lands, while requesting them to involve representatives from the various families to ensure peaceful work and transparency.

In his instructions, Mr Owusu-Bio tasked the surveyors to ensure that all pillars mounted are color quoted to bring clarity of ownership and boundaries, so that “Family A” does not end up working into “Family B” lands.

On his part, the Adenta Divisional Police Commander, Abraham Acquaye, assured the Deputy Minister that before they commence work, he will reassemble the Chiefs to inform them again of this last leg to ensure a peaceful building of these boundaries. He equally assured that immediately after the demarcation is done, he will ensure that handing over event is peacefully and safely done.

Police advised to demarcate lands

The Technical Director for Lands at the Ministry, Mr. Maxwell Adu-Nsarfoa, took the commander through the map, showing him the demarcations to confirm the boundaries and serve as a guideline for their work.

He indicated that a surveyor would provide the route for the boundaries and also provide bulldozers to open up the boundaries after which the pillars will be mounted to give way for smooth operations. With this, he iterated that the police’s duty will be to protect the people and the machines on site.

The Technical Director emphasized that currently, government has not officially handed over any parts of the lands to any party or family and therefore until after the demarcations, anyone who tries to claim ownership of the lands should be seen and treated as a land guard or an intruder.

Government through the Lands Ministry has for some years now, been fighting encroachers on the Adenta Amrahia Dairy Farmlands and has currently made headway in working with various families involved to ensure that the Lands are handed over peaceful to the preacquisition owners.

In spite of all these efforts, the Lands are being heavily encroached upon with impunity and the Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio will have no more of it.