Bolgatanga Assembly demolish unauthorised structure

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga The Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly has conducted an exercise to demolish all unauthorized structures in the Municipality. A task force led by the Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive, Edward Ayiriba Ayagle, was made up of some members of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly, the Ghana police service, and Ghana fire service who sought to remove containers along water ways, high tension areas and highways with the hope to bring proper sanitation to the Bolgatanga Municipality. The exercise also saw the removal of signages along portions of the Bolgatanga –Navrongo road and at road intersections including those of churches, banks and government agencies. Mr. Ayagle explained that owners of some containers which do not fall within the demolishing exercise will be given a monthly renewal permit. “All containers without permit have been given temporal permits renewable every six month and for those who haven’t paid their monthly operational fees they will have to do so in addition to penalties, in this way it will bring sanity into the municipality”. The demolishing exercise was not without protestation from the shop owners who accused the assembly for not adequately informing them action. “We were not informed prior to this demolishing, I just heard the announcement this morning that they are destroying my container so I came here. In fact building a container is not easy it involves money,” One person said “I have been at the assembly several times for permit but they keep on telling me they were yet to set a committee and since then anytime a go there they tell me to hold on” said another The issues of uncontrolled planting of metal containers in the municipality have become an issue in the Upper East Regional Capital. Metal containers and other structures of all sorts has become the order of the day in the municipality, while the Assembly keeps blaming owners for not contacting the assembly to acquire permits, others are also accusing the assembly for failing to enforce the rules and regulations leading to the increase of the number of shops and other structures. -End- (Published on Thursday, March 14, 2013 Page 23)