The Greater Accra Regional Security Council (REGSEC)has given encroachers of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-Animal Research Institute (ARI)land at Frafrahain the Adentan Municipality two days ultimatum to vacate.
It added that it would proceed to pull down every structure on the land subsequently after the ultimatum given.
This was disclosed by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr Henry Quartey, in a press conference at his residence yesterday.
The CSIR is the foremost public research institution in Ghana and the CSIR-Animal Research Institute (CSIR-ARI) is one of the thirteen research institutes of the CSIR.
“It is mandated to conduct research into the development and transfer of livestock and poultry technologies to communities, farmer groups, private and public organisations. This is to ensure the long-term food security of the nation,” the minister explained.
According to the Regional Minister, the CSIR which was currently governed by the CSIR Act 521 1996 was established under the Executive Instrument (E.I. 38) on more than one-thousand-acre land in 1976 at Adentan-Frafraha.
However, the CSIR Mr Quartey said had lost parts of the land due to some activities by unscrupulous individuals such as the sale of portions of the land to developers, building of houses among other things with only 200-acre of it remaining.
He noted that the activities on the 200-acre plot of land was a threat to the country considering the number of innovative research conducted by CSIR-ARI which was aimed at providing food security, and saving the country lots of foreign exchange.
Mr Quartey explained that after efforts to evict the encroachers from the land by obtaining a writ of possession from court in 2014, the CSIR-ARI in 2017 secured a loan to fence its remaining 200-acre portion.
He, however, pointed out that large portions of the fence had been broken down by the encroachers who had built single rooms, foundations of houses and walking to demarcate plots for themselves.
For instance, he said land guards had broken down the piggery infrastructure, destroyed four cattle housing facility which had been replaced by foundations for building and ongoing experiments.
The Adentan Municipal Assembly and the ARI under the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 (Act 925) in section 121 and the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) in section 97 had issued several warning to the encroachers to halt developments on the land but had defied these orders.
The Regional Minister said the situation called for drastic measures to be taken and for this reason REGSEC was collaborating with the Adentan Municipal Assembly, and the CSIR to remove all unauthorised structures from the fenced land without any delay.
“The current situation on the land calls for drastic measures to deal with the impunity with which people have encroached on the land to protect the remaining 200-acre land,” Mr Quartey said.
“Consequently, REGSEC is collaborating with the Adentan Municipal Assembly and the CSIR to remove all those unauthorised structures mushrooming within the fenced land without further delay,” he added.