Ghana: Minister leads soldiers to demolish illegal properties on 200 acre CSIR land after evacuation ultimatum

By Papisdaff Abdullah

Structures unlawfully erected on 200 acres of land belonging to the Animal Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Ghana (CSIR) have been bulldozed to the ground.  The exercise led by Greater Accra Regional Minister Henry Quartey comes after the Regional Security Council gave a 48-hour window for the encroachers to move from the institute’s land. “I led members of the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to undertake a demolition exercise on 200 acres of fenced land belonging to the State under the care of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSRI)” he posted on Facebook.

The institute has over the years complained about the increasing level of encroachment of about 800 acres of its over 1,000-acre lands. The minister continued, “out of the over 1,300 acres of CSIR land, over 900 acres have been encroached on, with the remaining 200 being sold out by unknown persons”.

Mr Quartey urged occupants of the over 900 acres of land to get assistance from the Lands Commission to assist them get executive instruments, in other to be able to register their properties in their names since none of them has documents or permits after over 20 years of building.  “After this exercise, the landlords’ association outside the perimeter should meet quickly and REGSEC will make recommendations to the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, onward to the seat of government, for those properties to be considered and eventually leading to regularisation” he said.

“I admonished the REGSEC team to demolish everything to ground zero, i.e. all existing and new spring-up buildings within the 200 acres of the fenced land should be demolished”, Mr Quartey added.