The demolition train, which started its journey from Adjei Kojo in Tema and other places in Accra and Kumasi, has stopped over at Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region.
On Tuesday, 18 February, the Techiman Municipal Assembly, under the guise of constructing a road, demolished the fence wall and part of Agyewaa Memorial Hotel, a forty-bedroom hotel located at the center of Techiman.
In an attempt to stop the demolition exercise, City Guards brutally assaulted the director of the hotel, Mr. Kwame Tuffour Afram and the manager of the Department of Urban Roads, Mr. James Wood.
DAILY GUIDE source at the hotel hinted that the action was taken because of Mr. Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, who is the Director of Elections for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr. Korsah is the son of the owner of the hotel.
Narrating his ordeal to DAILY GUIDE, the Managing Director of the hotel, Mr. Stephen Kwabena Korsah, said the management of the hotel acquired the plots of land for the construction of the facility way back in 1978 and commenced business in 1982. He said all necessary documents including the lease, were accordingly acquired. He said seven years ago a dispute ensued between the management and the GPRTU when the latter made an attempt to construct a road in front of the hotel leading to their newly constructed office complex.
He said that dispute was resolved when it was established by the then Town and Country Planning officer, Mr. J.S. Ayomba, that the road, which was to be constructed, should be behind the fence wall.
According to Mr. Korsah, about a month ago, the Municipal Building Inspector informed him that very soon a surveyor would be coming to the place to survey the road project for work to start and that from the documents in his possession, it would not affect the hotel in anyway.
On the fateful day that bulldozers came to demolish the fence wall and part of the hotel, Mr. Korsah said he was in his office when one of his security guards came to inform him that bulldozers were demolishing his property, and so he went out only to discover that it was the same building inspector who told him that they were there to construct a road. Mr. Korsah said the officer charged him to contact the MCE if he (Korsah) had any issue to raise about the exercise.
According to Mr. Korsah, he pleaded with the Building Inspector to order his men to stop work until he had contacted the MCE, but all fell on deaf ears. Sounding very furious, Mr. Korsah said “if this is the way things are going to continue in this country, no investor will put his or her money into any business for the authorities in power to use their influence to sabotage such business.”
He said as a law abiding citizen, he could only pursue the case at the law courts, hoping that the truth will come out and justice done.
As at the time of filing this report, Mr. Korsah had filed a motion at a Sunyani High Court seeking to put an injunction on the construction of the road.