Breweniase community deserves fair bargain
It is a known fact that every community or the individuals living in it always want to break away from the shackles of poverty, disease or illiteracy.
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In doing so, such communities or their residents often strive to better the lot of the younger generation through investment or empowering the residents through education.
Sadly, we often find some communities selling their birthright or families even giving out their children to well-to-do people as labourers and end up becoming poorer.
Such has been the story of the Breweniase community in the Oti Region where a foreign company acquired thousands of hectares of land from the people for peanuts as the company paid the farmers $5 per hectare for a period of 50 years.
In their pain, the community is calling for assistance for a re-negotiation of the price as the $5 per hectare has left them worse off. To add insult to injury, the lump sum the company promised to pay them in addition to the $5 per hectare agreement did not happen (See Daily Graphic, July 7, 2023).
While the people are calling for re-negotiation of the price per hectare, the Daily Graphic believes that all those involved in the payment of the pittance to the farmers must bury their heads in shame. It is possible that those people involved in leading the foreign company to purchase the land had even pocketed much heavier sums at the expense of the land owners.
We cannot sweep the issue under the carpet because there could be many more of such communities who have suffered similar fate, hence the need to deal with the problem.
It is important that we take steps to educate our people on the legal frameworks and processes in land acquisition, education and sensitisation on land ownership and transfer of legal titles of land.
It should also be critical to define the roles of chiefs and families in land and landed property allocation and purchases, and for the regional houses of chiefs to set up various ethical codes of conduct to guide the chiefs in issues related to land acquisition.
The Daily Graphic argues that we cannot continue on the path where our less deprived communities and people are taken for granted. We need to empower them so that they can decipher and accept what is good for them and not allow poverty, ignorance and the state of hopelessness drive them into accepting anything that is thrown at them.
We wish to commend CARITAS Ghana, the Catholic charitable organisation, for undertaking such initiatives and bringing them to the front burner for national discussion. The discussions or workshops should not put an end to the suffering of the people but should push other rights-based organisations to conduct further engagements to help right the wrongs.
For us, creating public awareness and advocacy is critical to ensure our communities and landowners derive maximum benefit from the resources they possess.
It is also a challenge to our state institutions handling land management systems to engage our communities more on how best to manage their resources to the benefit of both present and future generations.
We cannot and should not allow the source of livelihood of our people to be taken away from them. We must protect our people and the little resources they possess.
The Daily Graphic, therefore, urges the authorities and even the Legal Aid Board to revisit the contract or agreement the company signed with the Breweniase community to ensure that the people benefit from their resources.
