Humanitarian gesture gone bad: Petitioner demands compensation

The Ho Municipal Assembly rebuilt the house of an accountant of the Lands Commission which was pulled down because he had encroached on a piece of land earmarked by the assembly for a road.

But instead of the uncompleted three-bedroom house, the assembly decided, as a humanitarian gesture, to put up for the accountant a four-bedroom house on a correctly demarcated portion of the land he had purchased and for which he had been given a building permit by the assembly.

In spite of that gesture, Mr Andrew A. Tefutor, the accountant, petitioned the Judgement Debt Commission and asked for compensation of GH¢ 72,000 to be paid to him by the assembly for the acquisition of a parcel of land for a bypass, for which reason his three-bedroom building had been demolished.

This came to light at the commission’s sitting yesterday,  when a representative of the assembly, Mr Felix Seloame, who is the Ho Municipal Town Planning Officer, said part of the road fund was used to put up the building for the accountant. 

He disclosed that the assembly decided to rebuild Mr Tefutor’s house because he was nearing his pension, “so he doesn’t die before his time”, in view of the huge investment he had made.

Both Mr Seloame and the Sole Commissioner of the Judgement Debt Commission, Mr Justice Yaw Apau, expressed shock at the turn of events. 

No entitlement

Setting the records straight, Mr Seloame told the commission that Mr Tefutor applied for a development permit in 1989 which was given to him, but the assembly found out later that he had put up a building on part of an area designated for a link road from Ho to join the Sogakope road as part of a development scheme for the area.

The building was, therefore, pulled down for the road construction in 1998.

Mr Seloame refuted claims in Mr Tefutor’s petition that the land on which he had first put up his building had economic trees, for which he was entitled to some compensation, and that although compensation had been paid by the government to him, it had been embezzled by officers of the assembly.

To affirm his claims, Mr Seloame tendered in evidence a graphic analysis of the building site, the development permit issued to Mr Tefutor, minutes of meetings detailing all communication with Mr Tefutor, photographs of the building put up by the assembly for Mr Tefutor and the building plan submitted for the permit.  

Outrage

Expressing his outrage at the turn of events at the sitting, Mr Justice Apau said there had been many of such incidents of huge wrongful judgement debts paid by the government because the state failed to make appearances at the courts.

He suggested that if Mr Tefutor’s lawyer, who had since died, had been alive and persistent, the state might have paid the amount asked by Mr Tefutor.

Mr Tefutor was not present at the sitting. 

According to the commission, it had become difficult to trace him after his lawyer died. In view of that, his appearance was adjourned until contact was made with him. 

When he took his turn on the same matter, the Volta Regional Lands Officer, Mr Gershon Quamie Tsra, who was accompanied by Mr Nicholas Addae, a lawyer at the Legal Department of the Lands Commission in Ho, confirmed that Mr Tefutor’s property was not part of the portion of land used for the link road.

Writer’s email: Edmund.Asante@graphic.com.gh