The indiscipline in Afigya Kwabre South district of the Ashanti region is getting out of hand, as traditional leaders continue to sell out portions of the ‘shooting range’ land belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces to private developers.
The shooting range is an area where the military train their officers on how to use firearms. The development of illegal structures on the military site, which is located at Ntribouho, The Chronicle gathered, takes place mainly at night.
Apart from the encroachment on the military lands, concessions belonging to quarrying companies in the district are increasingly being encroached upon by private developers, after they had bought the lands from traditional leaders in the area.
This development came to the fore when the Ashanti Regional Security Council (AREGSEC) paid working visits to Quarry Companies working in the Afigya Kwabre South District to inspect safety measures put in place by the quarrying companies.
Among the companies AREGSEC visited were Woldcool Stone Quarrying Ltd, K.K Quarry, Bosa Quarry and Modern Granite Quarry.
When AREGSEC members got to the ‘shooting range’, the observation was that houses were increasingly springing up on the north-western side of the range. Owners of these buildings, The Chronicle gathered, do not have permit and allocation papers to that effect.
At a press briefing held at the assembly premises and attended by stakeholders in the quarrying industries, the Ashanti regional minister, Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah, who doubles as the Chairman of AREGSEC, expressed concern over what he had witnessed on the ‘military shooting range’ and quarry sites.
A visibly disturbed Osei-Mensah said AREGSEC had noticed that most of the chiefs are selling out buffer zone areas for residential development.
On the usefulness of the Ntribouho ‘military shooting range’, Osei-Mensah indicated that it is a no go area for civilians.
“There are some rocks which serve as a shield in the event a gun is misfired. The military knows there is a distance within which bullets are effective and vice versa, and that is why we have reserved a buffer zone. When we went to the firing range, we observed that people were increasingly building into the buffer zone”, he said.
Mincing no words, Osei-Mensah asked residents of Afigya Kwabre South who have encroached upon military firing range lands among others not to come to him when an action is taken against them.
“Please, do not come to me when the army demolishes your building. No one should trespass the buffer zone. If you build there and they demolish it, do not run to me for intervention, because I cannot stop the military from using this place. I do not have any place in mind to take them to, so let us protect where they train so that they can protect us.”
He directed Christian Adu-Poku, the District Chief Executive for the area to make sure that every building that is being built in a buffer zone is destroyed.
Commenting on buffer zones regulations, the Ashanti regional minister told the meeting that 500 meters away from the quarry site are reserved as buffer zones and no one is allowed to build there, but people have built as close as 20 meters from quarry sites.
One of the buildings is located so close to the quarry and when the quarry company carries out blasting exercises, the structure will be affected, destroying properties which sometimes lead to misunderstanding.
He warned the chiefs that all the quarry companies have buffer zones that must be preserved and that they should desist from selling the lands.
During the meeting, the District Chief Executive for Afigya Kwabre South, Christian Adu-Poku, asked the quarry companies to exercise patience when residents approach them about the impact of their operations, but Minister Osei-Mensah disagreed with the DCE.
“We have to call a spade a spade and stop defending the indefensible,” he said.
Touching on safety measures at quarry sites, Simon Osei-Mensah said AREGSEC will put the observations they have made on paper and bring it back to the companies for action.
According to him, almost all the companies visited had no safety manuals, adding that only one company had one but still left with training of staff to be abreast of ‘dos and don’ts’.
He announced that AREGSEC through the security agencies will provide a template to guide the quarry companies to design a safety manual and such documents would be modified based on the location of the company.
The Chairman of Northern Quarry Association, Mr. Adu Tutu Gyamfi, said his outfit was facing some challenges in their operations. Tutu Gyamfi accused the Afigya Kwabre District Assembly for encouraging encroachment on their concessions.
According to him, anytime they reported an issue of encroachment on their concession to the assembly, they refused to take action on it. Disclosing how lawless the Afigya Kwabre South has been, Tutu Gyamfi disclosed at the meeting that he came under attack, but no one was arrested.
“I share a boundary with the military, but they have started encroaching into the boundary. At a point in time, they threatened that they would kill DCE and I”, he alleged
On how feeble they are in defending themselves against attacks, the Chairman of Northern Quarry Association disclosed that they are individual companies, so anytime one company is attacked, they are unable to defend themselves.
Chairman Tutu disclosed that a sister quarry company had been hauled to Manhyia Palace for resisting the sale of a portion of her concession by traditional authorities to someone.
To Adu Gyamfi, Afigya Kwabre South chiefs do not respect the constitutional provisions which debar them from claiming ownership over minerals.
“The Chiefs do not respect the law, which says mineral royalties found on a piece of land belong to the state. To them, they do not accept it. The DCE is aware of this. They do not accept that the minerals belong to the state else they would not have sold lands 20 meters away from concession for development”, he said.
