By James Amoh Jnr, GNA
Accra, Dec 13, GNA – There was near chaos as the TDC Development Company began demolishing their old building which once housed some state institutions including the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Metropolis.
The TDC in their quest to re-develop the area had evicted the state institutions after series of notice to pave way for the re-development of the prime land.
Subsequent to that, some negotiations had gone on between the two parties: the TDC and the GES, to assist them with find a permanent space.
At about 1300 hours Thursday, a gang of heavily built task force from the TDC stormed the area wielding club harmers, claw bars amongst other equipment, as they broke parts of the deserted building which still had a cache of documents belonging to the Education Service, locked within.
Pleas from officials of the GES to the task force went unheeded as they broke down parts of the building, removing window frames, in an unyielding fashion.
An altercation broke out between the task force and an official of the GES who they claimed was videoing them as they overpowered him and took hold of his mobile phone, breaking his finger in the process.
The task force nonchalantly declined to hand the phone back to him after several pleas from the Tema. Metropolitan Director of Education and other bystanders, leaving the victim with no choice than to file an official complaint at the Tema Community One Police Station.
Leader of the task force said they had authorization to go ahead with the demolition exercise which was to remove items belonging to the Department, insisting that on Sunday, December 15, bulldozers and other heavy duty earth moving machinery would be deployed to pull down the entire building with the exception of the Magistrate court to pave way for the re-development of the area.
Even though the main block of the GES was intact and some officials were seen going about their normal duties, they expressed fear that they would be thrown out eventually in the coming weeks or months after witnessing such « brutality ».
Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the scene of the demolition, the Metropolitan Education Director, Mrs Bernice Ofori, expressed disgust at the incident, and said even though notice had been sent to the directorate; it was yet to totally vacate those offices as it kept official certificates of individuals and other important documents which were yet to be recovered.
Reacting to the impasse, Mr Ian Okwei, Protocol Manager of TDC said the area in contention is a nine acre piece of land which has been designated for re-development into a commercial enclave, adding that in accordance with the State Housing Ejectment Act, his outfit followed the necessary procedure as provided, by notifying all the state institutions within that enclave including; the Electricity Company of Ghana, Judicial Service which houses the land courts, Electoral Commission, Social Welfare Department and the GES to relocate.
“They were all notified and this process started about a year ago and some of the institutions responded saying they needed ample time to relocate with the exception of Judicial Service ».
According to him, TDC Company had provided a new court building for the Judicial Service at the Meridian enclave and that they were yet to relocate there as they had requested additional facilities which were already in the works.
He indicated that the EC and ECG had already moved whiles the Social Welfare Department had been given another office space at Community Five, and said the GES on the other hand pleaded with TDC to be given some time to relocate since the TMA had promised to rent a new facility to house them in the interim whiles a permanent structure was constructed.
According to the Protocol Manager, TDC acted in good faith because it had actually provided the GES a piece of land to construct a permanent accommodation in the commercial enclave, emphasizing that “we went further to give them our refurbished offices in Community Eight to enable them move in to pave way for the re-development project since it was time bound.”
As a limited liability company, he noted, it was not the duty of the TDC to do all that for the GES, but based on the relationship it had built over the years, the company found it prudent to help the directorate, albeit the Municipal Assembly had such responsibilities.
The Education Directorate requires about 13 rooms to accommodate all its units to efficiently oversee the over 300 schools, 88,421 students and 4,571 teachers in the Tema Metropolis.
GNA
