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General News of Tuesday, 22 December 2015
Source: Myjoyonline.com
File photo
Authorities of Osei Kyeretwie Senior High School are helpless as their efforts to rid the school’s land of encroachers have yielded no results.
There have been repeated clashes between officials and land developers despite state intervention.
Attempts by authorities to stop some encroachers from undertaking illegal construction saw the Headmaster, Samuel Agyepong; end up at the police station Monday morning.
Located in the Old Tafo suburb of Kumasi, the Osei Kyeretwie Senior High School has no fence wall.
The absence of the fence wall means campus is exposed to all manner of trespassers, some of whom live in houses authorities claim had been illegally built on school land.
Safety and security of students and staff are seriously compromised with reported cases of occasional attacks by unidentified people.
A visit to the school revealed private structures; some very close to the school’s administrative block are being erected.
Officials say a demolition exercise carried years ago put the brakes on encroachers for sometime but they have resurfaced at full swing.
Headmaster, Samuel Agyepong, indicates illegal developers have defied a court injunction imposed five years ago to stop such construction on the school land.
He says attempts to erect a fence wall to secure the school and its land have been restrained by a pending suit filed by alleged encroachers since 2011.
Mr. Agyepong’s determination to stop the persistent encroachment brought him face to face with some developers Monday morning, a situation which saw him end up at the police station.
“With a section of my staff members [we] went to the construction site stop the workers from building on the school land and before I knew they had gone to lodge a complaint at Bremang Police Station that I was interfering in their private activity. A CID from Bremang came with his handcuff to arrest me but the Tafo-Pankrono Divisional Police also arrived at the scene to arrest the workers because of an earlier report I had made against the encroachers”. Frustrated Mr. Agyapong explained.
According to Mr. Agyepong, he was made to write his statement as the court injunctions were read-but the encroachers would still not understand.
But some encroachers believe they are legally occupying the land as they claim to have documents to prove their ownership of the land.
Mr. Agyepong mentioned repeated attacks on him and students of the school by some of the encroachers.
Nevertheless, the frustrated headmaster who proceeds on retirement four days into next year is determined to secure the school’s land from encroachers.
He will petition city authorities, through the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service on the issue he describes as very worrying.
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