Government gave me my land - Kufuor clears the air on land grabbing allegations

Reacting to claims by the Lands Ministry that the former President and some other top officials sold out state lands while in power to their allies, Spokesperson for Mr. Kufuor, Frank Agyekum said that the only state land in the possession of the ex-president was given to him by the Chinery Hesse Presidential emolument committee under Article 71 office holders.

He insisted that Mr. Kufuor under no circumstance acquired state lands for any such purposes whilst in government. He quizzed the basis on which such claims were being made.

“We don’t know under which circumstances his name came to be associated with this list because it’s not like the former President went to expropriate land from any person or anybody…..As part of his retirement benefits under the Chinery Hesse conditions, Ex-President Kufuor was supposed to have been settled with a residential accommodation as well as an office accommodation.”

“The piece of land in question is a plot which was shown to him as where the government was going to put up his building for his residential accommodation so that’s all there is to it. He didn’t go out to look for land or ask for land, all the government did was to show him a piece of land they are going to put on his piece of land as per the Chinery Hesse recommendations.”, he said.

Mr. Agyekum indicated that the Ex-President was unhappy about the claims that depict him as having been involved in land grabbing activities and hence was bent on setting the facts straight.

“He just wants the facts to be known for everyone to know what it is because when the news came out, it appeared as though he had gone out to look for land or to expropriate land from someone maybe through illegal means, no, but the fact of matter is that it is a piece of land that has been given to him by government where his residential accommodation as per his retirement benefits are going to be given to him”.

Lands Minister, Peter Amewu constituted a committee as part of efforts to check the practice where state lands are sold illegally constituted a committee to investigate the sale of lands to some top state officials and politicians.

Following this, a list of high-profile politicians said to have been involved in the purchase of lands in Accra between 2009 and 2016 was released. About 416 individuals and institutions were allocated plots of lands in Accra’s most luxurious residential areas including Airport Residential Area, Cantonments, East Legon, North Ridge.

The list included high profile personalities under the NDC administration, including the former NDC Chairman Dr Kwabena Adjei, Ex- CEO of the NHIA, some ex-ministers of state and heads of public and private institutions.

Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor and John Rawlings were also cited as persons involved in the buying and selling of state lands. But the ex-president has been quick to dissociate himself from the land grabbing syndicate.