Landowners and settler farmers sited on an Agenda 111 Hospital project at Agona Nsaba have threatened to demonstrate against the Agona East District Assembly for failing to compensate them four years after their farms were destroyed.
According to them, the Agona East Assembly owed the landowners and farmers an estimated GH¢102,000.00.
In all, 11 farmers who had cultivated cash and food crops on 15-acre farmlands were affected when the Assembly took over and cleared it for the health facility, which is part of President Akufo-Addo’s Agenda 111 Hospital Projects.
Addressing a press conference at Agona Nsaba to register their displeasure, Mr Kobena Appiah, spokesperson of the farmers and landowners, said they found it strange that the Assembly had not paid them till date.
He said, “the DCE had put us in a perilous situation, and we are going through serious financial crisis due to the unfair treatment meted out to us by the Assembly.’’
Mr Appiah disclosed that they only relied on their cocoa, coconut, teak trees palm plantations, corn, cassava, and other food crops for their livelihood, but the farms had been destroyed.
The spokesperson hinted that the situation at the moment was not pleasant at all and appealed to President Akufo-Addo to intervene as a matter of urgency, since the Assembly was not prepared to pay them.
They applauded President Akufo-Addo for the Agenda 111 Hospital project, but said their compensations needed to be paid for them to cater for their children’s education.
The spokesperson said some of the affected farmers were aged and needed financial support for their survival since they have now become additional burden on their external families.
“As we are talking to you now, we have not eaten since morning, look at our ages, we cannot go out there to beg for alms, therefore, we are making a passionate appeal through the media to deliver our petition to the President to intervene else we will die untimely,’’ Mr Appiah stated.
The spokesperson alleged that the DCE insulted and mocked them anytime they called on her office on the issue.
Mr Appiah lamented that the women among them were widows who had become disappointed in the DCE who they alleged had taken them for granted.
Mr Mohammed Alhasan, Agona East District Coordinating Director who spoke to the media on behalf of the DCE, confirmed that the Assembly owed the farmers and land owners and had wanted to pay them last year, but could not do so due to financial constraints.
He debunked assertions made by the farmers that the DCE insulted and mocked them any time they visited the premises of the assembly to ask for their money.
He appealed to the farmers to exercise restraint while the Assembly made frantic efforts to find the money to pay them.
GNA
