4 Drag AMA, others to court

July 8, 2010 (Page 3)

FOUR persons have dragged the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and four others to the High Court in Accra, praying the court to declare that the 4.14-acre land, popularly called the Kinbu Gardens in Accra, belonged to the Kinbu Secondary Technical School.
The four, Alhaji Ali Braimah, Nii Tetteh Osu Nortey I, Nana Ahwireng Okanta-Obeng and Emmanuel Adotey, sued on behalf of the Tudu Community of Accra and the Board of Governors of the school, the Osu Stool, the parent-teacher association ( PTA) of the school and the old students association of the school, respectively.
They are praying the court to order the AMA and the other defendants, namely, the Lands Commission, the Accra City Management Company Limited, the Dream Reality Company Limited and the contractor on site, to vacate the said parcel of land which is opposite the Novotel Hotel and restore it back to the school.
A writ of summons filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by their counsel, Mr Bright Akwetey, is praying the court to declare that the AMA acted in breach of faith in removing traders and the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) from the said land to facilitate the construction, instead of handing the affected land back to the school.
They are, therefore, praying for an order for recovery of possession and general damages for trespass on the land, which is currently being developed into a private shopping mall and offices on the instructions of Dream Reality..
In their writ of summons, the four are also urging the court to restrain Dream Reality and the contractor on site from continuing with the proposed project on the land until the final determination of the case.
They are also seeking an order revoking a February 22, 2001 lease from the AMA to the Accra City Company Limited, which they described as null and void and, therefore, conveyed no valid title on the Accra City Company Limited and the Dream Reality Company Limited.
The four are pleading with the court to also declare as null and void a deed of assignment dated July 23, 2008 from the Accra City Company Limited to Dream Reality.
They are also seeking a declaration that the Lands Commission has no authority under the laws of Ghana to allocate public lands acquired for specified public purposes to private persons for their private benefit.
Also being sought by the plaintiffs is a declaration that the Lands Commission violated Article 20 of the Constitution, the State Lands Act 1962 and the State Lands Regulations 1962 (L.I. 230) Certificate of Title No. 432 of March 16, 1894, by allocating the public land to private persons for their private benefit, among others.
A statement of claim accompanying the writ of summons stated, among others, that by a Certificate of Title No. 432 dated 16th March, 1894, the Government of the Gold Coast acquired 8.76 acres of Osu Stool lands for “Government Services”, in accordance with the Public Lands Ordinance of 1876, and established the Rowe Road Middle Boys’ School on the land, complete with its own playing field, a workshop and a school garden.
It said the portion of the land now in dispute and the portion of land now occupied by the Novotel Hotel, as well as a portion occupied by part of the then Ambassador Hotel, were all part of the land compulsorily acquired by the Government of the Gold Coast for the Rowe Road Middle Boys’ School, now Kinbu Sec Tech.
The statement of claim stated that the school used a portion of the land as its playing field and a portion, stretching from the playing field through the land occupied by Novotel and part of the Ambassador Hotel, as the school’s garden. The school had a workshop next to the playing field on the same land.
Citing other instances which, according to the plaintiffs, clearly indicated that the land belonged to the school, the plaintiffs said it was, therefore, wrong for the AMA to lease the land to the Accra City Company Limited, with the active connivance of the Lands Commission.
It is also the position of the plaintiffs that if the defendants, particularly the Accra City Management Company Limited, the Dream Reality Company Limited and the contractor on site, were not restrained, the school would lose the land permanently, to its detriment and at the expense of education in this country.