Stalled Labone SHS project turns haven for miscreants

A Stalled four-storey eight-unit facility for staff at the Labone Senior High School has become a haven for squatters who now live on the premises.

People in the neighbourhood of the school with knowledge of the situation have described the comfortable intruders as junkies, weed smokers and the mentally challenged.

They are said to pose a danger to students and staff of the school. 

The uncompleted facility has the first and second floors tiled, but with  a ripped-off roof, while the wooden window frames have rotten away.

At the moment, it is surrounded with overgrown weeds not far from a classroom block whose top floor has been converted into a dormitory because of the large number of students.

At the base of the infrastructure, dried faecal matter is dotted on the tiles, while caked cement, dirty clothing, empty plastic bottles, jute bags and empty plastic bags, among other things, lay carelessly about.

Wiring

The Daily Graphic team that visited the facility also observed that majority of the cables in the wiring system in the facility were long gone, with only a few sticking out of their sockets.

 Items belonging to the squatters

Reptiles and rodents were also a common sight.

The clear and present danger to the school was evident when the Daily Graphic, accompanied by a member of staff of the school, came face to face with a young man in his 30s emerging from one of the rooms.

The room had a mattress he used as bed, a pillow, a checkered blue and white cloth similar to one of the uniforms of the students of the school, a black backpack and some empty cans he apparently used as cooking utensils.

There was a fireplace made up of two pieces of cement blocks with burnt firewood in the middle, an evidence that he had been cooking.

In one other room, he had connected his phone to what looked like a solar board placed in the direction of the sun to generate power.

The young man, who said he hailed from Techiman, was seen wearing a white shirt over black shorts.

His countenance was like someone who had been smoking but when he was questioned, he said he had only been sleeping.

He was subsequently asked to leave the uncompleted structure or be handed over to the police.

Authorities

The school authorities said the structure had been abandoned for about 10 years now.

During a tour round the facility, another young man wearing a cap was also seen emerging from the bush behind the abandoned facility. When confronted as to where he was coming from, he said he had gone to defaecate in the bush.

Miscreants

The Headmistress of the school, Rejoice Acolor, called for the speedy completion of the facility to accommodate staff  and to enhance security.

She said the social miscreants who occupied the facility often scaled the school wall to have access to it. Occasionally, she said National Security visited the school and that reports had also been made to the police.

A teacher, she said, once had his hand slashed, with his phone taken away.  

“There were mad people inside. When I brought the police to sack one of them, the person agreed to leave. This is a man who was attacking the teachers. He has even come to my house to warn me before,” she said.

Two weeks ago, she said, a mad person beat up one of the teachers.