Benito Owusu-Bio, a Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Lands and Forestry, has charged the Adenta Divisional Police Command to protect public lands at Amrahia, a suburb of Accra, from further encroachment.

Government, through the Lands Ministry, has been fighting encroachers on the Adenta Amrahia Dairy Farmlands.

The Ministry is making headway by collaborating with various families to ensure that the lands are handed over peacefully and lawfully to the pre-acquisition owners.

Despite these efforts, some unscrupulous individuals have been erecting unauthorised structures on the land with impunity.

In view of that, Owusu-Bio tasked the Divisional Police Command to ensure that there was no further encroachment on the lands until it was handed over to the rightful owners.

“Get bulldozers and demolish all these walls as soon as possible,” the Deputy Lands Minister told the Divisional Police Commander.

Owusu-Bio gave the directives when he paid a working visit to the Amrahia Dairy Farmlands in the Adenta-Nkwantanang Municipality on Wednesday, to inspect the progress of work in demarcating the Lands and hand them over to the rightful owners.

“The government wants to ensure that the policy and promise made to hand over some portions of the state-acquired lands to the pre-acquisition owners is followed to the letter,” Owusu-Bio said.

He urged the Police to protect the surveyors who would demarcate portions of the lands and ensure that no intruder or land guards distract their work.

Owusu-Bio also instructed the surveyors to commence work as soon as practicable and mount up boundary pillars to properly demarcate the lands, urging them to involve the various families to ensure peaceful work and transparency.

“Make sure that all pillars mounted are coloured to bring clarity of ownership and boundaries, so that “Family A” does not end up working into “Family B” lands,” the Deputy Minister said.

The Adenta Divisional Police Commander, Mr Abraham Acquaye, on his part, assured the Deputy Minister that the Police would commence work, and re-assemble the Chiefs to inform them once again about the final leg of creating land boundaries.

Maxwell Adu-Nsarfoa, Technical Director at the Lands Ministry, took the Police Commander through the map, showing him the areas that would be demarcated and boundaries to serve as a guideline for their work.

“The surveyor will provide the route for the boundaries and provide bulldozers to open up the boundaries after which the pillars will be mounted to give way for smooth operations,” he stated.

The Technical Director stated that the government had not officially handed over any portion of the lands to any family and, therefore, after the demarcation exercise, anyone who tried to claim ownership of the lands would be treated as an intruder and dealt with accordingly.