The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio has directed a Private Developer, Dr. Adu Ampomah, to as a matter of urgency halt all building activities on a parcel of land owned by the Bulgarian Embassy.
The Deputy Minister said this when he stormed the construction site in Accra on Wednesday, 16th March 2022 to witness the flouting of regulations and rules of law by the Building Contractor and his clients.
Speaking to the caretaker of the site, Hon. Benito Owusu-Bio insisted that ongoing works at the construction site must be put on hold whiles a dispute over the ownership of the land is settled at the court.
He disclosed that the Bulgarian Embassy has a sublease of 10 years which has not yet expired. ” We are aware of a litigation between the Embassy and the Developer. So if anything at all, in the interim, nobody must be here working”.
He bemoaned,” yesterday, when we heard of this, we asked the Lands Commission to put a “stop work” notice on the premises but our attention has been drawn to the fact that those notices have been removed”.
He stressed that the Lands Commission is constitutionally mandated to stop the private developer from working and admonished that the owner of the structure stops work whiles investigations are ongoing.
On his part, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Kweku Ampratwum-Sarpong said the private developer has no backing of the Government to continue building and must stop work with immediate effect.
The Deputy Ministers were accompanied on this exercise by the Technical Director of Lands at the Ministry, Mr.Maxwell Nsafoa.
Story by:Kwaku Stephen
