COMMUNITY 21 RESIDENTS WARN TDC (PAGE 29, FEB 19, 2010)

MEMBERS of the Community 21 Landlords Association have declared their intention to resist all attempts by the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) to eject them from a parcel of land they have lawfully occupied since 1982.
According to them, they acquired the land from the TDC and had documents which empowered them to work on the property as they annually paid ground rents to the TDC .
Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Ashaiman, the Chairman of the association, Mr Ali Sikatse Ayornu, stated that TDC had intensified its efforts at ejecting 16 out of the 30 landowners from the parcel of land they had used for agricultural purposes as directed by the TDC.
He said the other 14 members had been granted permission to change the the use from farmland to a residential status .
Explaining, Mr Ayornu said in the year 2000, when members realised that the area was catching up with development, they applied to the TDC to change the use from farmland to residential .
Mr Ayornu stated that TDC did not respond, but rather wrote to some of their members after three months of their request to inform them about its decision to re-zone the land as a residential area.
He disclosed that according to the letter, TDC had indicated its intention to re-enter the land and therefore was terminating their farming activity and directed that they removed their structures .
Mr Ayornu noted that “those who occupied the land numbered 30, but had reduced to 16 landlords who were unfortunate to fall into the ‘cheat net’ of TDC”.
He was, however, saddened that landowners like the Afariwaa Farms and some officials of the TDC who were operating their agricultural ventures there had been granted the status to convert their plots to residential purpose.
Mr Ayornu, who showed some documents bearing the names of some TDC officials who benefited from the change to this reporter and also the original drawings of the area to prove their case, said his people were not taking kindly to the treatment being meted out to them.
He said TDC had succeeded in demarcating part of their land to a company and was in the process of giving the entire area to another company.
Mr Ayornu said they felt cheated when they saw an advert in the Daily Graphic put out in the name of the Ghana Free Zones Board in search of consultancy services in preparation for land user plan and architectural drawings for its proposed Free Zone residential accommodation at the Tema Community 21 on approximately 152 acres.
He alleged that TDC would want to turn its attention to their land at Community 21, because it had sold out all the lands at the Free Zones enclave in Tema.
Mr Ayornu called on the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing and all other stakeholders in the industry to come to their aid, alleging further that TDC had changed the original plan to suit them and would therefore be able to sell the land for bigger profit.
Members of the association argued that if the land would still be used for residential purposes, then nothing prevented the TDC from allowing them who had worked on the land for many years to change the user from agricultural land to residential purpose.
Mr Ayornu said the association had evidence of the indiscriminate sale of lands which the owners had developed, denouncing that TDC had paid off the other 14 landowners who were also members of the association .
He was of the opinion that they were being maltreated by the TDC because they did not belong to the elite class, and appealed to the human rights agencies to fight for them.
Mr Ayornu said the association would soon take steps to petition these agencies and also the President of the republic.
The Public Relations Officer of TDC, Mr Sammy Abakah, who the Daily Graphic spoke to, confirmed that TDC was ejecting the landlords, but would not give much details about the confrontation between the two parties.
He, however, said it was unfortunate that the situation had come to this level.