Managing Editor of the Insightnewspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has expressed disgust with the ongoing demolition exercise at Sodom and Gomorrah being carried out by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
Sodom and Gomorrah residents' activities, authorities claim, are causative factors to Accra's perennial flooding and a danger to the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP).
The residents are accused of dumping waste into the storm drains thus impeding the smooth passage of water into the sea.
After the June 3 flood and fire disaster which claimed over 150 lives, the AMA began a chain of demolitions and has now gotten to the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.
However, Mr. Pratt speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on "Kokrokoo" was worried that the AMA Chief Executive, Dr Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, could order for structures to be razed down in the area without recourse to proper procedures.
Residents of Old Fadama, popularly referred to as “Sodom and Gomorrah” Monday morning hit the streets to demonstrate against the demolition exercise which has rendered them homeless.
The AMA demolished the homes on Saturday in a bid to prevent floods.
Bulldozers last Saturday began the exercise to raze down hundreds of homes in the slum so that the authorities can start widening the Korle lagoon to help prevent a repeat of the June 3 deadly floods which claimed 159 lives.
The angry youth who demanded for compensation, vowed to reprise "boko haram" style of attacks on Ghanaians, if authorities fail to relocate them after their houses were destroyed.
Commenting on the issue on PeaceFM, the Senior Journalist noted that city authorities should have exercised restraint in carrying out the demolition exercise. He also opined that the residents deserved to be compensated before the demolition was undertaken.
"Do you know how the person suffered to purchase a bed?...Then you take 15 minutes to raze everything down and you say he (the victim) shouldn’t be angry. Why shouldn’t he/she be angry? Somebody should explain to me why people shouldn’t get angry. If it were you, would you not be angry?” he fumed.
Mr. Pratt also lambasted section of the public for politicizing the ongoing demolition exercise and further sought to find out which law in the country justifies the AMA Boss's directive.
“They should make proper reference to the law and stop wasting our time and our ears with baseless ill-understood concept of the law. What is that? Which law is that?” he quizzed. |
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