Correspondence from Eastern Region:

Over 200 persons may no longer have easy access to healthcare as residents of Ankwa Dobro, a community in the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipality of Eastern Region, will soon see their only health centre raised down by the Ghana Highway Authority.

The facility which was donated, together with its ancillary equipment, to the community about seven years ago by the Blueskies fruit juice processing company limited has been marked among many other structures on the Ofankor-Nsawam stretch of the Accra-Kumasi Highway to be demolished.

The Ghana Highway Authority last week Thursday commenced a mass demolition of buildings along both sides of the Ofankor-Nsawam stretch of the Accra-Kumasi highway to pave way for the start of the construction of an additional carriageway.

The demolition exercise met stiff opposition from property owners, tenants, and landlords whose companies and places of abode are affected with the reason that the GHA did not give them enough notice to prepare adequately to relocate.

According to authorities at the Ankwa Dobro CHPS Compound, the short notice did not auger well since currently, the facility does not have any land to relocate to set up on.

“We were given a verbal information to quit or to relocate from where we are right now, then later they followed up with a letter for us to move. They gave us a date of 19th April to move. So right now we are also asking and soliciting the assistance of other corporate bodies to help us get a place to move,” Mrs. Georgina Agangida, the Midwifery Officer at the CHPS compound told Ghanaweb.

Mrs. Agangida explained that the demolition of the facility without a ready alternative place to relocate to will have adverse impact on the entire Ankwa Dobro community and the health service delivery as residents would not be compelled to go farther to Nsawam government Hospital or a nearby private clinic to access healthcare.

“We serve about eight (additional) communities and the services we render are OPD, CWC, Ante-natal, post-natal, deliveries and family planning. We also do voluntary testing and counselling on HIV and STIs. We are a health insurance accredited facility so we serve more than 200 client in a month.

“If government or our traditional leaders or the custodian of the land will give us a permanent place, that will be better for now,” Mrs. Agangida appealed.

Facilities such as fuel stations, schools, hotels, shops and clinics among many other structures are being raised down even though they have necessary permits from the GHA.

What the residents are shocked about is why the institution doing the demolition was the same government institution that gave them the permits after collecting huge sums of money from them knowing the land had been earmarked for road construction.

A letter found by Ghanaweb and signed by the Acting Chief Executive of the GHA, N.D. Brown, gave the notification that a demolition was going to take place on all properties extended into the road reservation (45m from the existing road centre line) acquired by government of Ghana (GOG) by Executive Instrument (E.I. 17) dated September 16, 2005.

The letter ordered the resident and owners to remove their properties within the road reservation acquired by the government in the E.I. 17 before 19th April, 2020 to pave way for the Accra-Kumasi dualisation road project to commence.

The letter further stated, “Note that compensation has long been paid to those who were in occupation of the acquired road corridor right after the publication of the E.I. 17.”