Gomoa East Assembly wages war on land guards, abolishes digging fee

The Gomoa East District Assembly says it has banned land guard activities and the collection of digging fees within the district.

This was arrived at after the District Security Council led by the District Chief Executive, Solomon Darko Quarm, met with traditional authorities on the issue.

According to the DCE, this will bring lasting peace and security to the area while attracting more investors.

From henceforth, digging fees among other payments will be incorporated into the payment of the land according to the Assembly.

The District Security Council of Gomoa East will engage the services of security personnel to engage in monitoring activities.

“Over the four-year existence of the Gomoa East District Assembly, it has received a myriad of complaints from inhabitants regarding the harassment by land guard making life unbearable for developers. But I am happy to inform inhabitants of Gomoa East that from henceforth the Gomoa East District Assembly in collaboration with the chiefs and people within the district have banned land guard activities and the collection of digging fees from developers. Areas such as Dampase, Langma, Gomoa Budumburam, Aprah, Nkwantanan are part of areas that experience these activities,” Mr. Quarm told Citi News.

“The digging fees will from henceforth be incorporated into the payment of land and shall be paid only once to the landowner at home during the hand-over of site plan or indentures, adding that on no account should anyone demand payment of digging fees from a developer after he has paid the initial monies to the Traditional Authorities who sold the parcel of land to the,” the Gomoa East DCE said.

The DCE again indicated that they are sometimes overwhelmed by persons who intentionally engage in building projects on weekends at the blind side of the Assembly, all in the name of avoiding payments of a permit fee.

Mr. Quarm noted that the land guards take advantage of such persons and extort monies from the since they realized the don’t want to go to the Assembly to pay for the building permit fee.

“We are worried about persons engaged in building during the weekend at the blind side of the Assembly, all in the name of avoiding the payment of permit fee. But interestingly these persons are the ones who are exploited by these land guards and this is dangerous,” he added.