Regional News of Sunday, 10 July 2005

Source: GNA

Clans call for destoolment of Chief of Kpone, Appolonia

Kpone (GAR), July 10, GNA - Three clans of Kpone in the Tema municipality have called for the destoolment of the Paramount Chief of Kpone, Nii Tetteh Otu II, and Nii Tei Adumuah II, divisional chief of Appolonia, for showing gross disrespect to the elders of the clans of the stool.

The elders of the clans, Bediakowe, Kojowe and Sanshie alleged at a press conference at Kpone on Saturday that the two chiefs allocated a piece of land at Appolonia, which is under Kpone Stool to a contractor to win gravel to construct the road linking Bawaleshie and Appolonia without seeking their consent.

Addressing the conference, Mr Joshua Abbam-Tetteh, spokesman for the clans explained that the Kpone stool land was being allocated indiscriminately for various purposes without the consent of some elders of clans, responsible and therefore took the matter to court to stop such moves.

He said while the land case was pending before the Accra High Court, the two chiefs allocated a piece of land at Appolonia to one Samuel Opoku Larbi, a road contractor in 2005 to win gravel for the road project.

They therefore filed a writ in a court against the two chiefs for contempt and they were subsequently sentenced to three days custodial sentence plus a 30 million cedis fine each or one-month imprisonment. Mr Abbam-Tetteh said, since the subjects installed the chiefs, they were legally bound to consult them on any move they took and violating that amounts to disrespect and insubordination.

He however, said they were not against development in their area but disagreed with the chiefs that they took nothing from the contractor before allowing him to win the gravel, because the land does not belong to them personally.

"They must abdicate the stool or face the wrath of the kingmakers at the national house of chiefs for destoolment with disgrace", he warned. Meanwhile, Nii Tetteh Otu and Nii Tei Adumuah had stated in an earlier press conference that they consulted the clans before issuing a licence to the contractor to start winning the gravel and said they could not be destooled by media reports.