The Regional Security Council (REGSEC) and the Adentan Municipal Assembly have issued a 48-hour ultimatum to all those putting up unauthorized structures within the fenced wall of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Animal Research Institute (ARI) lands at Adentan-Frafraha to immediately pack tools and materials and vacate the land.
The REGSEC warned that persons found loitering on the fenced 200-acre land after the deadline will be dealt with in accordance with appropriate laws of the land.
The REGSEC, together with the Adentan Municipal Assembly and the ARI of the CSIR will proceed to remove every structure on the land.
The ultimatum was contained in a statement issued at a press conference on Monday 20th June, 2022 on encroachment of the CSIR lands at the Animal Research Institute at Frafraha.
Government under Executive Instrument (E.I. 38) established the CSIR-ARI on an over one-thousand-acre land in 1976 at Adentan-Frafraha with a mandate to conduct research into the development and transfer of livestock and poultry technologies to communities, farmer groups, private and public organizations.
The government, after the acquisition of the land, compensated all owners of plots on the land including the original owners at Berekuso and Akuapim.
However, over the years unscrupulous persons have consistently sold portions of this land to unsuspecting Ghanaians
In 2014, as part of efforts to retrieve land illegally acquired by encroachers, CSIR-ARI went to court and obtained a Writ of Possession in an attempt to evict encroachers from the land but this exercise did not materialize.
In an attempt to stop further encroachment, CSIR-ARI in 2017, acquired a loan to fence off the remaining 200-acre portion of the land.
Incidentally, today the encroachment is even worse with large portions of these fences have been broken down by encroachers who have moved into these previously fenced areas to put up single rooms, foundations of houses and walling to demarcate plots for themselves
“Land guards have broken down portions of the piggery infrastructure, destroyed four (4) cattle kraals (ie cattle housing facility) and foundations for buildings have been erected to replace them. Land guards have also built walls and single rooms in front of the Hatchery, Meat Processing House and the Dairy Processing Unit blocking access to these facilities by vehicles.”
“Some ongoing experiments have been destroyed by the land guards which includes some donor-sponsored ones.”
“Clashes between local farmers and Fulani herdsmen is a National Security issue. The Government of Ghana recognized this threat to national security and therefore placed the National Cattle Ranching Committee under the Ministry of National Security. To address this Fulani herdsmen problem the Cattle Ranching Committee is developing a grazing corridor from the North to the South of Ghana and CSIR-ARI is to provide expertise and locally developed nutritious pasture planting materials for the project. All the pasture materials developed for this project have been destroyed by land guards with bulldozers,” the statement said.
Members of the Security Council, the statement said, have visited the site and witnessed the aggressive encroachment even on the 200-acre fenced land and stressed that none of the buildings has any building permits.
“The Adentan Municipal Assembly has not issued any permit to anyone to build on the ARI land,” it said.
The REGSEC warned that the Land Use and the Spatial Planning Act, 2016 (Act 925) and the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) give the Adenta Municipal Assembly power to remove all the unauthorized structures mushrooming on the CSIR/ARI Lands without prior warning.
The Assembly and the ARI, it said, have gone ahead to issue warnings to developers within the perimeter to stop any development which has been largely ignored by the encroachers.
The current situation, the statement said, calls for drastic measures to deal with the impunity with which people have encroached on the Land to protect the remaining 200-acre land.
The REGSEC warned that on the expiration of the 48-hour ultimatum, it will move in and remove all structures and urged developers to advise themselves and grab their valuables and leave before the bulldozers roll in.
