KINTAMPO ASSEMBLY PAYS DAMAGES, COST (PAGE 13, SEPT 10, 2010)

The Sunyani High Court in the Brong Ahafo Region has ordered the Kintampo Municipal Assembly to pay a total of GH¢121, 250.00 to Mr Agyapong Adu-Baah as damages and cost, in view of the assembly’s failure to compensate him in respect of his parcel of land which the assembly acquired to construct a market complex for the area.
Consequently, the assembly has made an initial payment of GH¢50,000.00 and is obliged to clear the balance in installments.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the area, Mr Alhassan Seidu Harrison, who disclosed this at the Third Ordinary Meeting of the Fourth Session of the assembly at Kintampo noted that, before the court’s judgment on May 27, 2010, the case had dragged on for 13 years.
He explained that at a meeting of the assembly in 2005, the members decided that GH¢20, 000.00 should be paid to Mr Adu-Baah as compensation, but said the decision did not go through.
The MCE said records available indicated that after the man sued the assembly, the court issued summons on many occasions to the assembly to appear before it but the assembly refused to honour those summons.
Mr Harrison indicated that the court, therefore, considered the action of the assembly not to appear before it as a contempt of the court, adding that on November 19, 2009, the court impounded a Farmtrac 70 tractor with registration number, G.E. 5231, belonging to the assembly at the Kintampo Municipal Magistrate court.
“Thereafter, the assembly continued to appear before the Sunyani High Court and vigorously pursued the case until May 27, 2010, when the Sunyani High Court passed a final judgment on the case in favour of Agyapong Adu-Baah and requested the assembly to pay the sum of GH121,250.00 to him”, the MCE told the meeting.
Mr Harrison announced that the assembly intended to establish a police barracks within the municipality but there were challenges in the acquisition of land, and therefore, appealed to the chiefs and landowners in the area to co-operate with the assembly towards its development agenda.
Again, he indicated that, in July this year, the Ghana Armed Forces called on the assembly to request for a piece of land for the purpose of establishing an Engineering Regiment for the Northern Belt, which includes, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and the three Northern regions.
He said the team visited some areas in the Kintampo Municipality and finally recommended a stretch of land near the final waste disposal site for the project.
On education, Alhaji Harrison disclosed that a six-unit classroom block with ancillary facilities to be funded by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), under the Schools Under Trees Programme, had been awarded to the Kunsu Methodist L/A Primary, Saeed Islamic Primary and Miawani L/A Primary Schools at Kunsu, Gulumpe and Miawani respectively.
The MCE also informed the house that a number of roads had been reshaped in the municipality, and the Kintampo lorry park has been regravelled, adding that the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Kintampo North Constituency, Mr Stephen Kunsu, had rehabilitated the Kintampo-Kunsu road which was hitherto immotorable.