Deputy Minister orders halt to sand winning at Amrahia
The Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio, has directed an immediate clamp down on all sand winning activities on portions of the Amrahia Dairy Farm Lands, in the Adentan Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.
He said any individual or group who would engage in winning sand would be arrested and prosecuted.
“We are warning all persons engaged in sand winning here to stop immediately. It is an illegality and anyone found in the act will be arrested and prosecuted,” the Deputy Minister stated.
Mr Owusu-Bio gave the warning yesterday when he led a team from the Ministry, the Lands Commission and a taskforce from the Ghana Police Service to inspect the land in the municipality.
“The Amrahia Dairy Farm Land has not been ceded to anyone and we don’t want any encroachers on it,” he added.
The visit afforded the deputy minister and the team the opportunity to see at first hand the final work being carried out by surveyors in view of government’s decision to allocate portions of the land to the five pre-acquisition owners.
Mr Owusu-Bio said the government would, by the end of October this year, go ahead with its intended plan to allocate 40 per cent out of 1,000 acres of the Amrahia Dairy Farm Land to the five families, identified as pre- acquisition owners of the land, while retaining the remaining 60 per cent.
He inspected the portion of the land being used for the construction of 32 residential bungalows for staff of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, following the relocation from Borteyman, a suburb in Accra.
The Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, James Dadson, stated that the Commission, Ministry and Municipal Assembly would undertake continuous engagement to fashion out a scheme to, among others, aid development in the area.
Early this year, residents of Amrahia called on government to institute measures to check sand winning which was creating health and safety hazards.
It would be recalled that in October, 2021, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, disclosed government’s intention to allocate 40 per cent of the total land size to the pre-acquisition owners, and asked the Lands Commission to speed up work on the proposal.
He urged the Chief of Amrahia and other allied villages to work together to prevent any form of land litigation or misunderstanding which could jeopardise the efforts made so far.
“The moment there is a split of front between these families and chiefs, it becomes a problem” the Minister, said, and called for unity to fast-track the process.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
