A/R: Traders left stranded after ‘unauthorized’ demolition at Krofrom

Scores of traders at Krofrom, Colombia, in the Kumasi Metropolis, have been left stranded following an unauthorised demolition exercise carried out at dawn on Monday, September 8.

Eyewitnesses say the operation, executed by unidentified individuals around 2:00 a.m., destroyed dozens of shops along with goods and personal belongings.

“Around 2:00 am, we were woken up by some noises and saw them demolishing the shops, destroying our personal belongings and goods,” one affected trader told Channel One News.

Several traders lamented that no official notice was served, though some admitted they had been verbally warned two weeks earlier by unidentified persons claiming the land had been sold.

“They didn’t give us any notice; if they had, we would have removed our things,” one trader said.

“They came to inform us two weeks ago that someone had purchased the land, and so they have given us two weeks to leave, but we were waiting for an official letter,” another added.

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), however, has distanced itself from the exercise, insisting it had not authorised any demolition.

“Let me state it again, that KMA is not behind the demolition. Actually, we have no idea what happened, and so the honourable member for the area drew our attention to it. But my checks at the Special Planning and Works Department of the assembly state that the owner of this place, the building there, has come to KMA to request a permit to build a structure. And having followed due procedure, the assembly granted him the permit to build a structure. But he came, and then he saw other things on the structure. And so by law, the contractor or the owner of the facility was supposed to come back or revert to the assembly that ‘The permit that I have been given, some people or illegal people are on my structure, so that you would give him what we call the demolition permit.’ Or, better still, ‘We would have to come in ourselves, assess the situation, so that if we have to get rid of the people ourselves, we do that by our own, KMA’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Henrietta Afia Konadu Aboagye said.

She added: “But then the person did not do any of them…And if the perpetrators call themselves KMA people, they are not, because the office in charge and the people who were going to assign to do that work are not…we didn’t assign them. We don’t know them.”

The Assembly has assured that it will act if the traders formally pursue the matter against the private developer.

“You don’t use your might to destroy their items or wares like that. On those grounds, it’s wrong. But the people here, those who are selling or anyone here, they can come together and then come to the assembly and present their case, and the assembly will invite the man or the woman so that discussions are done, and then anything that was destroyed in the process, they are compensated for it,” Afia Konadu Aboagye advised.