Tema West MP �Mad� @ Parliament

Parliament has cited the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) for disrespecting it following the clearing of debris at the demolished site of Adjei Kojo in Tema before the committee set up to investigate the demolishing exercise visited the site. The committee noted that the explanation by TDC was �untenable and considers it disrespectful to the institution of Parliament� as the act of clearing the debris to construct drains was interference with evidence on the ground. The Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Irene Naa Torshie Addo, has however said while the committee did some work, they failed to investigate whether the demolishing was justified or not. It would be recalled that some months ago, residents of Adjei Kojo were thrown into a state of confusion when bulldozers, escorted by heavily armed military and police personnel razed down their houses despite fierce resistance from residents, local chiefs and the MP for Tema West, Irene Naa Torshie Addo. A statement was then presented on the floor of Parliament by MP for Tema West on the demolishing exercise and the Speaker of Parliament subsequently constituted a special committee to investigate the issues raised in the statement and report to the House. Presenting the committee�s report, Chairman of the Committee, David Tetteh Assumeng noted that �the principal conclusions drawn from the investigation are that whilst the Chiefs of Sraha East and Santeo (Solomon City) illegally sold out the said plots to unsuspecting developers, the victims also acted ignorantly by not conducting any search on the land at the Land Title Registry before acquiring their parcels of land from the illegal grantors.� Mr. Assumeng added that the TDC on the other hand, slept on its rights for far too long thereby giving the victims a false sense of security and the impetus for continued development and further encroachment of the land. The Committee thus made some recommendations such as the grantors who sold out the lands to the affected persons should be made to compensate the victims, and on humanitarian grounds, �government and or through TDC take steps to ameliorate the plight of the affected persons.� Also, the committee recommended that as a result of the activities of Land Guards, the Inspector General of Police should put a mechanism in place to flush out all Land Guards in the country to help protect innocent lives and properties. In addition, it was recommended that the Lands Commission and all stakeholder institutions involved in the land registration processes must streamline the processes of land registration. Contributing to the report which was subsequently referred to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, MP for Tema West, Irene Naa Torshie Addo expressed disappointment at the level of work done by the committee. Mrs. Addo said the committee was to investigate the justification for the demolishing exercise and added that some members of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs who were expected to attend upon the committee on regular basis to proffer legal advice were frequently absent. She further noted that the committee ought to have found out if TDC was still supposed to use the land for its intended purpose and further stressed that TDC was �playing games� with the number of houses demolished.