Revealed: How Osafo Maafo, Elizabeth Ohene and NPP Cronies Stole State Lands

-Paid GHC 6,000 for two plots of land at Cantonments.

An astonishing document at the state land repository has detailed how some 90 individuals in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) between1999 and now, had practically stolen some 20 acres of prime state lands in Cantonments, Airport Residential Area and Ridge, without going through a transparent bid for those lands.

The document from the Lands Commission (LC) that is making the rounds on social media, is coming in the wake of the blatant stealing of over seven acres from the Achimota Forest and an undisclosed land size from the highly protected Sakumono Ramsar lands by Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie (Sir John), the late Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission who was also a former General Secretary of the NPP.

The LC shows that over 90 individuals in the NPP virtually appropriated for free the most expensive lands in Roman Ridge, Cantonments, Airport Residential Area, etc., at ridiculous prices that are as low as GHC 6,700 for two plots or GHC 10,000 for half an acre of land.

At the time, the least price of half an acre of land in those high-end areas was approximately GHC 200,000, but the then-Minister of Works and Housing, Alhaji Mustapha Idris Ali, between 2003 and 2005 started the loot by handing over prime state lands to government cronies like confetti.

The theft would be continued by his successors from 2005 to 2009, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman and Boniface Abubakar Saddique respectively.

According to the LC document that had leaked recently, individuals such as Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo; former Speaker of Parliament, Ebenezer Sakyi Hughs; current Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey; and the loud-mouthed former Minister State for Tertiary Education Elizabeth Ohene, former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo.

Others include former Chief Justices, Sophia Akuffo and Georgina Woode. Following in the rape of state lands include judges such as Prof. Ashie Kotey, Justice A.K.B. Kludze and Afua Kuenyehia.

A peeved Professor Kwaku Asare (Kwaku Azar) a US-Based legal luminary quizzed: “How will the judiciary hold the executive accountable when its members are busily acquiring airport, cantonment and Roman Ridge lands for GHC 8,000?

“Why should highly paid ex-gratia receiving ministers be allocated prime lands for peanuts when students don’t have textbooks? Look, we cannot continue like this were the very trustees of public lands are just appropriating them for their own benefit,” Kwaku Azar fired in a Facebook post.

In 1998, the then-Jerry Rawlings government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) introduced an urban renewal programme re-develop government residential properties and renew old run-down neighbourhoods for new developments.

The then NDC government identified public lands in Cantonments, Airport Residential Area, Kanda, Switchback and Ridge Residential Areas for re-development. In 2000, the Cabinet discussed and approved the Accra Redevelopment Scheme, to be carried out under a public-private sector partnership as a means of funding and executing the project.

The NDC then proceeded to introduce a publicly publicised bidding system, based on bidding rules and guidelines for the selection of individual applicants and prospective developers. However, when the NPP government of John Agyekum Kufour took power in 2000, it completely bastardised the laid-down transparent procedure and proceeded to hand the state lands to its cronies under the cover of darkness.

Between 2003 and 2008, over 46.85 acres of residential plots and houses had been allocated to individuals and companies linked to the NPP, including Zoomlion Ghana Limited which purchased about 2 acres of land at Plot No.14 Ambassador Hotel Planning Scheme for a meagre GHC 182,000 in 2007.

Meanwhile, the Akufo Addo administration is desperately trying to cover up the latest round of robbery of state lands by its cronies. In what clearly appears to be the beginnings of the choreography of deception, President Akufo-Addo’s government had recently signed an Executive Instrument E.I 144 that declassified a substantial part of the Achimota Forest from being a forest reserve, paving way for private hawks to swoop on the nature preserve.

The anticipation of this was what allowed Sir John to audaciously rape the Achimota Forest and the Sakumono Ramsar site.

Amazingly, the government is claiming that the illegal parcels of lands that the late Sir John willed to his relatives were not registered with the Lands Commission.

“Preliminary inquiries reveal that the alleged will in question is a subject matter of litigation/ contestation in court. Further checks at the Lands and the Forestry Commissions, the repositories of the records of lands in question show no record of ownership of lands at the Achimota Forest or the Sakumono Ramsar site by the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie,” a statement from Lands Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor claimed.