The government has directed the police to step up the search for the arrest of members of a gang who, last week, attacked the studios of Radio Ada.
The directive was contained in a statement from the Ministry for the Information signed by the Minister, Mr. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.
To this end, the police have placed a-GH¢10,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest of the criminals.
The armed, unknown gangsters, last Thursday, January 13, 2022, at about 11:30 hours, stormed the studios of Radio Ada, beat up the Presenter on duty, destroyed the on-air equipment, and warned them never to discuss the Sonhor Project again.
The incident at the station, seen as an attack on the media, received wide condemnation.
The Songhor Salt Project has witnessed conflicts, irrespective of which government is in power.
On May 17, 1985, a pregnant woman, Margaret Kuwornu, was killed by a stray bullet fired by the police during a demonstration at the site by the indigenous Ada people.
This was when the salt mining project was under a private investor, Vacuum Salt Products.
The locals, whose entire livelihood depended on salt mining in the Songhor Lagoon, were protesting against being left out in the exploitation of their God-given resources.
A statue of the killed pregnant woman has since been erected at Boni Korpe, adjacent the project to remind them of the incident.
From then, governments took over the running of the largest salt mining project in this part of the globe.
Information available from experts has it that the managements put in place by the state ended up with scandals of financial misappropriation.
Government has designed two plans for the project, namely, Land Use Plan and Master Plan for Songhor.
The experts, who preferred anonymity, stated that the Land Use Plan was the complete take-over of the assets without recourse to the plight of the locals.
On the other hand, the Master Plan favoured both private investors and the locals, but for unexplained reasons, the former, which is flexible, has not been implemented.
The posture of government ignoring the indigenous people, whose position has always been that of permanent owners, is the source of the raging conflicts in that salt enclave.
According to the Libi Wornor (Chief Priest of Songhor Lagoon) the clan people owned the Songhor and had been mining salt for over 600 years, and were, per the present arrangement with the private investors, being left out of the exploitation.
