Some residents in Akwatia are lamenting over the constant harassment and acts of extortion by some official of the Denkyembour District Assembly, in the Eastern region.
According to them, one of the directors at the Assembly, (name withheld temporarily) has formed a taskforce in the area with landguards brought in from Accra to patrol the various communities just to harass landowners who are putting up their buildings and extort huge sums of money from them.
“When they come to the site, they will first rush on the workers and subject them to some beatings and then seize all their working tools and materials. They would then rush the victims to the Assembly building and threaten them to pay between Ghc300 cedis and Ghc1,000 cedis for building without permit” Samuel Adante Antwi Boadiako Boateng ,a resident of the area told this paper.
“They then charge between Ghc4,000 and Ghc6,000 before issuing building permits in a village town like Akwatia, which doesn’t make sense”, he alleged, adding that “The level of harassment is too much and if nothing is done about it we will protest strongly by not going to the polls to cast our votes.”
He continued “We are therefore appealing to President Akufo Addo and the Minister of Local government, Martin Agyei Mensah Korsah, to intervene and investigate the issue and bring the perpetrators to book to appease the people of Akwatia and surrounding communities otherwise we will not vote on December 7.”
They have deliberately brought these NDC people from Accra to attack and intimidate us to create anger and disaffection among the people and force them to lose interest in the Electoral process. We need government to tackle the situation and punishment the delinquents in order to restore confidence in the residents, he stated.
