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Release
GaDangme
June 4, 2012
PRESS CONFERENCE BY GADANGME COUNCIL
ON THE SCRAMBLING FOR AND ILLEGAL SALE OF STATE LANDS
AND GOVERNMENT BUNGALOWS
(The Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey Case)
Venue: International Press Centre (GIJ) Date: Monday,
4th June, 2012
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1.0 BACKGROUND
1.1 The Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday, May 22, 2012
that “blessed” the sale of a government bungalow to Mr.
Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey on grounds that no rules were
flouted and that he had followed all laid-down
procedures to acquire that property has generated
intense debate for or against the whole transaction. The
said bungalow was once used by Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey,
then a Minister in the NPP Administration as his
official residence. Hence, the charge of “conflict of
interest” brought against him by two Deputy Ministers of
the NDC government in their capacity as private
citizens.
1.2 Obviously, the Government was not too pleased with
the Supreme Court’s decision and, within days it was
reported that government had decided not to sell the
property to Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey. In addition,
government had decided that political appointees would
no longer be allowed to engage in any such unacceptable
transaction.
2.0 THE GADANGME POSITION
2.1 The Issue of Public Morality
(a) GaDangme appreciates government’s concern for the
safety of state property and therefore its determination
to ensure that privileged officials and politicians as
well as their cronies do not use their offices and
connections to acquire such properties to the detriment
of the Ghanaian people and ultimately to deprive the
original owners of their heritage.
(b) In the Obetsebi-Lamptey case, the Supreme Court
ruled that there was no evidence of “conflict of
interest” in the whole transaction. However, GaDangme
believes that there were other grounds of violation of
public trust and confidence. In that connection,
GaDangme submits that since the bungalow sales began
with the Accra Redevelopment Plan around 1998, no public
information had been given about the availability of
such properties for sale or solicitation of bids for
auctioning of such properties. GaDangme strongly
considers that the bungalows have been sold mainly on
the basis of “Insider trading” by which “big time”
politicians and key government officials have come to
learn of such information because of their employment by
or work in government. In other cases, their friends,
business and political associates and family members
might have been “tipped” of material and non-public
information about such pending sales. Information of
such sales has therefore been restricted to only a few.
This amounts to “gross abuse of office” and it is not
acceptable.
(c) Despite the above, GaDangme has serious reservations
about the manner in which government seeks to reject or
circumvent or interfere with the Supreme Court’s
decision by nullifying the “sealed” transaction
altogether. There is incontrovertible evidence that Jake
Obetsebi-Lamptey is not and cannot be the only person
who has benefitted from this scheme. If his transaction
is therefore nullified on grounds of public morality,
then those of the others should also be abrogated. If
not, government’s attempt to remedy an action that
compromises public trust and confidence seems personal,
ill-conceived and not in keeping with the principles of
good governance.
(d) Furthermore, GaDangme considers that the issue of
public morality has always been present in all matters
of state compulsory acquisitions by all governments
without due reference to the needs of the original
owners at the time of the acquisition or consideration
of what their needs might be in the future. Worse still,
government has often neglected to pay any compensation
or given out very little to the landowners even when it
is collecting money from the completed projects (e.g.
Teshie-Nungua Estates, Adentan Housing Project and
Dansoman Estates etc.). Other tracts of land
compulsorily acquired but which are not being utilized
at all have been similarly treated with non-payment of,
or delayed compensation for decades. By this practice,
landowners have been rendered landless and/or tenants in
their own “homes” as it were, with little or no
resources of their own and thereby making them poor.
These facts have been willfully and sadly ignored by all
governments especially in recent times that the present
government’s show of probity in dealing with this
particular bungalow/land case seems awkward, to say the
least.
(e) As indicated above, all governments, past and
present, have been insensitive to the needs, and
therefore turned deaf ears to the cries and pleas of
GaDangme about the many illegal sales of GaDangme lands
and numerous unconscionable and reprehensible acts of
officials in the Lands Commission and other departments
in dealing with GaDangme land issues. Consequently, if
the reports in the Daily Graphic, Wednesday, May 30,
2012 (page 33) and Thursday, May 31, 2012 (pages 1&3)
are indeed correct, then hitherto fears or the
perception of political patronage in the allocation and
sale of these bungalows are verifiable facts. One
therefore wonders whether the governments and officials
have been faithful in the discharge of their
responsibilities.
2.2 The Question of Legality
(a) Good friends of the Press, you are aware that since
its founding in 1998, GaDangme has always spoken against
the sale of GaDangme lands which were acquired by
various governments in the past for “public purposes” or
“in the public interest” but are no longer being used
for such purposes and has been advocating for the return
of such lands to its original owners in accordance with
what, in our view, should be the true and proper
interpretation of Article 20 (5) and (6) of the 1992
Constitution.
(b) Article 257 (1) and (2) further strengthens the
notion of public lands as being held by the President on
behalf of and in trust for the people of Ghana. This
therefore connotes that such property should not be
divested to individuals for private gain without giving
the original owners the first option to acquire the
property.
(c) The call for the return of GaDangme lands that are
no longer being used for public purposes or in the
public interest has been, and still is one of the
primary objectives of GaDangme in its efforts to
preserve GaDangme heritage and to promote the
advancement of the GaDangme people in every way
possible. In that regard, GaDangme has held a number of
Press Conferences (e.g. Thursday, February 8, 2001; 22nd
June, 2005 and Wednesday, 2nd June, 2011) and carried
out demonstrations (e.g. Tuesday, April 26, 2005)
calling upon government to return those parcels of land
to their owners.
(d) On Wednesday, 25th March 2009, the GaDangme Council
met with His Excellency President John Atta Mills at the
Castle and presented a petition on the concerns of the
GaDangme people to him. The President received the
delegation well and promised to respond to the issues
raised. However, up till now, nothing has been received
from his office.
(e) We affirm that by the provisions of the Article 20
(5) and (6) of the 1992 Constitution, government has no
right to sell such lands in the first place without
giving the original owners the first option to buy up
the property. The selling of the bungalows is therefore
illegal and it seems absolutely wrong to claim any
legality on a transaction which has no legal basis
simply because someone has satisfied certain procedural
requirements for that sale. The misapplied use of such
lands in any shape or form that is inconsistent with the
law is wrong, improper, offensive and damaging to
GaDangmes and it must be stopped.
(f) We wish to stress that Ga land space is severely
limited, the population keeps on increasing at an
alarming rate and physical facilities are woefully
inadequate to meet the needs of the teeming millions in
the Greater-Accra Region, particularly in Ga-Mashie and
the large towns of Osu, La, Teshie and Nungua. Under
these circumstances, GaDangmes, especially Gas need
their land to harness and control their own modest
resources for development and to provide basic
necessities for their own people.
(g) To facilitate the above, GaDangme hereby urges
government, as a matter of probity, justice and
fairness, to review all the laws and other legal
instruments regulating compulsory land acquisition and
management by the state (e.g. The Lands Administration
Act 123 and the State Lands Act 1962 (Act 125) to
protect the interests of all parties. We consider that
the provisions of these two laws have often been
capriciously used in land acquisition while provisions
for the payment of compensation have too frequently been
ignored by successive governments.
(h) GaDangme further calls on government to repeal the
Land Development (Protection of Purchasers) Acts 1960,
Act 2 and its accompanying Legislative Instrument
L.I.118. These two legal instruments seek to protect the
interests of those who have purchased land from
unscrupulous persons without lawful title to the land
they claim to own rather than the interests of the
rightful owners. GaDangme has always maintained that
these laws are discriminatory in form, content and
substance because they are only applicable to landowners
in Accra. They are therefore inimical to GaDangme
interests.
(i) GaDangme wishes to draw attention to the fact that
since Article 267 of the 1992 Constitution provides that
all Stool lands must vest in the respective stools in
trust for the people, the Accra-Tema Stool Lands
(Vesting) Instrument 1964 (E. I. 108 of 1964) has become
otiose, and must therefore be repealed, because as the
law stands now it is discriminatory against the Stools
in the Accra – Tema area.
2.3 Conclusion
(a) GaDangme deeply regrets that despite the above,
nothing has been done about any of these appeals by
either previous governments or the current NDC
administration.
(b) It is even more regrettable that though the NDC made
categorical promises in its Manifesto for the 2008
Presidential Election to return acquired GaDangme lands
to their original owners when it came to power, high
level discussions by GaDangme Council with top NDC
government officials and key political leaders including
His Excellency, the President have not yielded the
anticipated results.
(c) GaDangme calls on government for immediate end to
any further sales of government bungalows to politicians
and highly placed government officials, their political
and business associates, friends and family members.
Those that have been sold should be recovered for the
benefit of the original owners of the land.
(d) We emphasize that land space in GaDangme, especially
in Accra is severely limited. Government must therefore
be very circumspect in considering any further
acquisition of GaDangme lands for public purposes.
(e) GaDangme urges government to review The
Administration of Lands Act, 1962 (Act 123) and the
State Lands Act 1962, (Act 125) to ensure more judicious
use and fairness of its provisions in matters of land
acquisition and payment of compensation due.
(f) The Land Development (Protection of Purchasers) Act
1960, Act 2 and L.I. 118 must be repealed on grounds
that they are discriminatory in form, content and
substance in that they are only applicable in Accra.
(g) GaDangme notes that a number of politicians
belonging to various parties, especially the NDC and the
NPP are listed and known as beneficiaries of the Accra
Redevelopment Plan. Consequently, those parties -
whether they are in power or not - find it very
difficult to take just and proper action(s) to correct
what is clearly offensive to public morality and
unacceptable with disingenuous interpretation of legal
terms and principles so as to hold on to their
ill-gotten gains.
(h) GaDangme hereby cautions and serves due notice that
any disingenuous attempts to maintain the “status quo”
will be fiercely resisted by the GaDangme people and
others who are in similar predicament. It is a fact that
there can be no peace whenever and wherever peoples’
lands have been forcibly taken, illegally acquired or
deviously annexed.
(i) With regard to the current “Obetsebi-Lamptey
Bungalow Saga”, the NDC government is trying to show its
preparedness to do something right. Admittedly, the
government has been too slow to act for so long. But, it
is “better late than never” and so a start must be made
somewhere and the time to do so is now!
(j) GaDangme would therefore like to state unequivocally
that ALL transactions entered into by various
governments under the nefarious Accra Re-development
Plan must be scrupulously reviewed now and appropriate
measures taken to restore sanity in government land
administration. “What is good for the goose is good for
the gander” and Ghanaians will not accept what amounts
to the institution of a mischievous practice or
principle of “Different strokes for Different people.”
Both the laws of the land and governmental actions must
not be discriminatory. Long live GaDangme! Long live
Ghana, our Motherland!
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
………………………………......
Signed: Prof. Jonas N. Akpanglo Nartey
(Nene Prof. Abanam Akpanglo II)
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