The OdoitsoOdoiKwao and Nii Abo Commey Families have appealed to government to release their shares in TDC.
According to the families, they have 50% Shares in TDC and now that TDC is a liability company as the Ministry of Finance holding 100% shares, it will be appropriate if the family is given its 50%-share per the agreement over the ownership of TDC.
The families led by Nii Abo Commey of TemaAgbaafoatse who also doubled as the President of Ghana Psychic and Traditional Healers Association and Mr. Mike NiiOdoiLaryea, head of NiiOdoitsoOdoiKwao Family of Accra, are claiming that the TDC catchment areas GHAPOHA, Ministry of Finance and Christian Kwesi Arthur Focal Consult international limited are all own by NiiOdoitsoOdoiKwao Family and that all the family is seeking for is that the 50% Share and per the agreement that a member of the family must be part of the various boards under TDC.
“We are aware that this coming June, 2021 H.E. Nana Addo will release some lands in Accra to its owners so we call on government to hand over to the rightful owners with proper documentation,” they said.
The family has also made progress in securing a Certiorari Order covering approximately 200 acres of TseAddo Lands.
If carefully calculated legal suits being prepared and presented by the lawful attorney of the families of Accra are successful, the stability and business plans of many prominent businesses in Ghana will be affected in the coming months and years. Big corporate names such as Standard Chartered, Melcom, Barclays Bank, Ghana Commercial Bank, Unilever, MTN, Japan Motors, Graphic Corporation, and a host of big names in the recent political history of Ghana are amongst the institutions and individuals who are expected soon to show proof and evidence of their lawful ownership of lands on which have been built massive multi-million cedi edifices.
That an acre of land in some prime areas of Accra now sells for not less than one million dollars, the law suits that cover several thousand acres, could become amongst the largest multi-billion dollar land cases ever decided.
In another large number of cases, some unscrupulous lawyers, some of them Ga, noting that their family elders were asleep at the wheel, have surreptitiously leased or sold these lands “legally” to total strangers, some Lebanese, others Indian and increasingly in recent years, Nigerians and other foreigners.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official at the Lands Commissions said, “My brother, in Ghana today, you can buy beautiful land without showing any proof of identity or even nationality. Just ask anybody who has bought land at East Legon or Airport Residential whether they were ever asked to present their passport or birth certificate at any stage of the proceedings.”
The fury of the Ga-Dangbe people over the loss of their prime lands has become even more acute by virtue of the recent spate of commercialization of lands in Accra by successive governments.
Speaking to the media at his office in Accra, the rightful attorney for Odoitso OdoiKwao family Benjamin NiiTettehYemoh said: “Look, I can take you to a number of lands and buildings in Accra and you will be shocked to hear of those who are supposed to own these lands. In many of these sad cases, prominent politicians and even former heads of state and their wives are behind such ownership or leases. And some collect rent on these properties every single month, without us the real owners getting anything! The time for justice has arrived, I tell you!” said NiiYemoh, in a scarcely concealed rage.
Continuing, NiiYemoh said, “Many are those who have used twisted legalities, false misrepresentation and fraudulent documents to acquire their properties. Indeed, it would shock you to find that in some cases, people are living in fine houses and using multi-storey office blocks and industrial estates without any papers whatsoever. Indeed, in a recent case, when we confronted a prominent Lebanese business family, they advised us quietly that indeed they have no documents and cannot prove that they are the land owners.
The position of the General family’s is that the North Industrial Estate was compulsorily acquired for industrial purposes, but there has been a change of the use of the compulsorily acquired land as against the original purpose of the acquisition.
This claim is in consonance with Article 20 (1) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic, which provides that ‘No property of any description, or interest in or right over any property shall be compulsorily taken possession of or acquired by the State unless the taking of possession or acquisition is necessary in the interest of defense, public safety, public order, public morality, public health, town and country planning or the development or utilization of property in such a manner as to promote the public benefit and the compulsory acquisition is made under a law which makes provision for the prompt payment of fair and adequate compensation’.
The Ga State Lands family’s acting per their lawful attorney, Benjamin TettehYemoh, has in this regard served writs of summons and sued a number of companies and churches situated in the North Industrial Area in consonance with the Constitutional provision. The churches affected include: Winners Chapel International, Winners Chapel Ghana, Christ Embassy, Lighthouse Chapel International (the Qodesh) among others.
The Ga State Lands family has also served writ of summons to some organizations including Mantrac, Melcom group of companies, VIP transport, SSNIT among others. It is the case of the Ga State Lands family that these companies and religious bodies are not supposed to be there in the first place. The family claims that these organizations are also paying rents to people who are not customary family representatives.
Family sources say some of the churches pay as much as US$6000 monthly as rent to people who are not the rightful owners of the land, including to officials of a Government agency, which had originally been allocated the land.
The family has also discovered that large tracts of lands in the South Industrial Area were never acquired by the government of Ghana.
According to Benjamin NiiTettehYemoh, the lawful attorney and KojoAntwiAbankwa (the family solicitor), the whole of South Industrial Area was never acquired by the government of Ghana, hence the Mantse family, acting per its lawful attorney, has sued the Lands Commission for taken over the lands without the consent of the family and also for giving out the lands in the South Industrial Area to certain companies.
He sends strong warning to occupants who have one way or other bought lands at TseAddo must come to OdoitsoOdoiKwao office in Osu for proper documentation.
