Residents of some suburbs at Okuamning in the Kwaebibirem District of Eastern Region have called on the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to step in to get the Ghana Oil Palm Development Company Limited (GOPDC) to pay them their due compensation which has been delayed for nine years now.
The aggrieved residents say their crops and valuable properties which were on their grabbed pieces of land have since not been paid them as a result of which they are languishing in poverty.
The residents, who come from various localities at Okumaning including, Aboabo, Beposo and Subinso among others, said since 2013 when an agreement between them and the company was signed to have the company pay them their compensation, that has never happened as they allege that the GOPDC is using some "cunning" means to evade the payment of the compensation.
"They came to tell us they had acquired our land from Okyenhene meanwhile, we have indentures indicating our ownership. We were paying our taxes to the stool lands and we had our properties on it."
"But they told us that they would bring a valuer who would value every property and compensate everybody within one year".
"They brought needed papers and we all signed our portions. But they never kept to their words. They kept delaying with payment till date," Robert Amuzu, an opinion leader told GhanaWeb in Koforidua after a court sitting.
According to the aggrieved residents, the delay tactics by the GOPDC have caused them so much money which may be more than the amount the company may pay them.
They also expressed that many more residents have died in the course of the legal tussle between them and the company.
"People who have died due to this litigation, it has led to the death of more than 400 people.
"The case keeps adjourning since 2013. We are in 2022. Nine to ten years now! You have paid some, even that happened just two years ago. And you still do not want to pay the rest of us."
"Every time we come, the company brings different excuses to win adjournment," Abrokwa Samuel of Okumaning-Aboabo said.
A 60-year-old Vida Sena Tetteh, a resident of Okumaning-Beposo, also grieved that her two-acre land, which had palm plantation and houses on it, was taken over by GOPDC and till now no compensation has been paid to her.
She said she no longer has land to til to make ends meet and currently living in a shabby accommodation. Vida also joined her counterparts to appeal to the President of Ghana to intervene to let the company settle them duly.
Meanwhile, in a written submission filed to the court by the company's attorney, it told the court that "the plaintiffs...are not owners of the parcel of land (the company) is in possession and occupation of."
The written submission stated that the said land was vested in the Government of Ghana as far back as 1976 and that because the land was a stool land, crops and other valuable properties compensation was paid to owners at the time (1976).
"My Lord, therefore, the impression being created by the plaintiffs that the land belongs to them and that they were deprived of the land is not correct," the written submission by GOPDC lawyer stated.
According to the submission, the aggrieved residents are "unlawful occupants" of the land who are just there to "frustrate genuine investors like (GOPDC)".
However, an MoU between the company and the aggrieved residents signed in 2013 indicates the company's commitment to pay them their compensation.
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The residents want the government to intervene in the matter