Minister orders destruction of building
An uncompleted four-storey building that was sited on two major distribution pipelines of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), near the Kumasi Airport Roundabout, has been pulled down.
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The building was demolished on the orders of the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Peter Anarfi Mensah.
The pipelines supply water to 15 communities with a population of more than one million. Some of the communities are the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Aboabo, Manhyia, Asokore, Adukrom, Sawaba, Anloga, Oforikrom, Alabar, Sepe Timpom, Atonsu, Kaase, Atonsu and Asawasi.
The demolition was supervised by armed military men and officers, and necessitated by threats by engineers of the GWCL that they would have no option but to disconnect the pipelines that supplied water to the 15 communities to prevent the loss of lives, should the high-pressure pipelines burst.
Engineer
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, at the demolition site, the Regional Chief Engineer for Ashanti South of the GWCL, Mr Daniel Muomaalah, said several attempts to get the developer to reason with them and move away from the area had not yielded any fruitful results as he usually engaged machomen to threaten the officials of the company.
He also said although the main office of the GWCL Ashanti South was about 100 metres away, engineers were afraid to repair faults in the area because any time the workers attempted to do so, the construction workers raised an alarm that made the machomen threaten them.
There was a practical demonstration of the situation yesterday as the Ashanti Regional Minister, in the company of some GWCL engineers and journalists moved to the area. Some machomen started gathering there, but immediately the armed soldiers arrived at the scene, all of them, some riding motorbikes, vanished.
Regional Minister
The visibly worried Ashanti Regional Minister wondered why anybody would choose to build on a pipeline that distributed water to more than one million people in Kumasi, particularly when it could burst, destroy property and lead to the loss of lives.
Initially, he ordered an investigation into the construction of the building but when the Asokore Mampomg Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Nuhu Hamidan, arrived at the scene and showed documents indicating that the assembly had refused to grant a permit for the construction work, the minister ordered that the structure should be pulled down.
Quoting copiously from a document containing the decision of the Statutory Planning Committee of the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly dated September 30, 2015, the MCE said the committee refused to grant a building permit for the development of the area because it would obstruct water distribution to the Kumasi Metropolitan and the Asokore Mampong municipal areas.