Regional Minister orders demolition of structure on water path
A 45-year-old mason, Mr Appiah Dankwa, who was seen putting up a structure at Anwia Nkwanta along the Kumasi-Obuasi Road, in the Ashanti Region, has been ordered by the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Simon Osei Mensah, to stop work and the building demolished.
The mason, who said he had been engaged by a resident whose name he gave as Auntie Mary, to help her put up the structure, from which she intended to sell provisions, indicated that he was only fulfilling his part of the contract.
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“How can you build on a water course? Who gave you the permit to build along a major road like this? You just look at the distance of this structure from the main road,” Mr Osei Mensah said in dismay, when he got down from the vehicle in which he was travelling to confront the artisan.
The minister, who was on his way to inspect works on the nearly completed Anwia Nkwanta-Obuasi road, as part of his two-day working visit to some project sites in the region, ensured that the structure was being pulled down before he continued his journey.
He blamed the assembly for sitting aloof to allow such an illegal structure to be erected along the road.
Mr Osei Mensah noted that aside from the structure sited close to the road, it also stood on a water path, and that there was no way authorities would sit on the fence and wait till residents got flooded by heavy rains before they acted.
“Why must we allow one individual’s selfish interest to submerge the will of an entire community?” he bewailed.
Owner
On the minister’s return from Obuasi, he visited the site to see whether his order for the structure to be pulled had been heeded to.
He, however, met the owner of the structure who had heard of the minister’s visit to the site and had come around to plead with authorities.
According to Mary, she had sought the consent of the Assemblyman for the area, Mr Frank Awuah, to put up the structure, and pleaded with the minister to give her some time to operate in order to fend for herself and that of her family.
Attempts to find out from Mr Awuah why he gave permission for a structure to be built close to a major road in a water path proved futile.
