Accra-Kumasi Expressway project: Affected Akyem Asene farmers appeal for early compensation

More than 200 farmers at Akyem Asene near Oda whose property was destroyed to pave the way for the construction of the new Accra-Kumasi expressway have appealed to the government to pay them adequate compensation.

The property destroyed included cocoa and food crop farms, as well as oil palm plantations.

Some of the affected farmers, wearing red pieces of cloth around their heads, necks and arms, demonstrated through some principal streets of Asene before converging on the Asene durbar ground to speak to the media about their grievances.

Leaders of the victims, namely Kofi Koranteng Sarpong, Yaw Peprah, Da Costa Asamoah and Yaw Ampomah Asiedu, took turns to explain the hardships they were facing after the destruction of their property over eight months ago.

They said after losing their farms, they could no longer make ends meet; neither could they pay the fees of their children in tertiary educational institutions because they had been deprived of their means of livelihood.

Mr Asamoah, for instance, said that since his eight-acre cocoa farm, which gave him an average income of about GH¢40,000 annually was destroyed in February, 2026, he had been facing economic hardships.

Mr Koranteng Sarpong noted with concern that the surveyors working on the project had not measured the destroyed farms of more than 20 farmers, including himself to determine the extent of the damage, let alone the compensation due to them.

When the Daily Graphic contacted the Head of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) survey team for the road project, Samuel Tieku, he confirmed that some of the farmers’ destroyed farms had not been measured to assess the extent of the damage to their property.

He explained that originally, the width of the new expressway was 120 metres but it had been widened to 150 metres, thereby affecting more farmers.

Mr Tieku urged the affected farmers to exercise restraint as their concerns would be communicated to the appropriate quarters to assess the extent of damage to their property and pay them adequate compensation.

The Benkumhene of Asene, Nana Ntiamoah Nyarko, added his voice to the appeal of the aggrieved farmers to the government to pay them the necessary compensation to ease their economic hardships.

He stressed that under normal circumstances, the government should have paid the affected farmers compensation before destroying their farms for the commencement of the expressway, but that was not done.