Forced Evictions

My trip to Ada Foah (see previous post) wasn’t all pleasure. Some work was involved. I was meeting with Wilfred Dzinado, the owner of Maranatha Beach Camp. He had, a few weeks ago, called the Human Rights Clinic at HRAC requesting help for a human rights complaint. I was there to investigate. His story is both sad and complicated, and should make us give careful thought to who really benefits from western style development.

This is Wilfred’s story.

Wilfred has owned the Maranatha Beach Camp in Kewunor Village, on the easternmost island of the peninsular of Ada Foah, for some 10 years. His camp is right next door to another, Midan Beach Camp. Both provide simple accommodation in reed huts, aimed at Ghanaian and international budget travellers and volunteers. The profits from Maranatha Beach Camp are ploughed back into the community in Kewunor. In particular, the profits fund the village school. Wilfred is currently in the process of building a new school structure, made from concrete rather than reeds. Maranatha Beach Camp profits also pay the school’s teachers. Many people from Kewunor are employed by Wilfred’s Camp.

The Bradt Guide to Ghana, the leading English-language travel guide for the country, describes Maranatha Beach Camp as follows:

“Located 2km southeast of town [Ada Foah], right next door to the Midas New Estuary Beach Club, this lusciously laid-back resort has an equally attractive location and is pretty similar in feel, though the reed huts, with mosquito nets above the beds and brightly painted world flags on the front doors, have sand floors only. Compost toilets and bucket showers. A portion of the proceeds is ploughed into local community projects such as turtle conservation and the maintenance of a school in the nearby village.”

However, the land underneath Kewunor Village has a complex history.

The tiny village of Kewunor is just a stone’s throw from the slightly larger Azizanya village, both of which lie in a municipality now known as Ada, or Dangme East District. The municipality was settled by four Dangme-speaking clans who, many, many years ago migrated from Lorlorvor, near the Shai hills, and were drawn to the area by the Songor Lagoon.  The territory was divided among the four clans, including the Lombiawe clan and the Dangmebiawe clan.

After the Katamanso War in 1826, Nene Tetegah of the Lomobiawe clan founded the town of Ada Foah. Since then, the whole of Ada Foah has been owned by the Tetegah family.

Kewunor itself was settled by Emmanuel Yetiekpor, an Ewe fisherman, in or around 1909. At that time Yetiekpor and his family lived on a portion of the land that is now in the sea. Under the authority of the Ada Foah chief (a member of the Tetegah family), Yetiekpor became the first chief of the Kewunor. The current village settlement was established in the 1940s. Yetiekpor’s descendants remain chiefs of the village. Today, the village is home to around 1,500 people.

In 1974, under an Executive Instrument dated 26 April, the Ghana Tourist Authority (GTA) acquired the island of Kewunor from the Tetegha family for use in tourism development. The land was surveyed, coconut trees counted, and full monetary compensation paid to the Tetegah family. However, the project was abandoned and the government has made no use of the land they acquired. All the while the people of Kewunor have resided there and cared for the land.

In 1990, the GTA under different leadership approached the Tetegah family requesting additional land. The family refused to give them more land, citing the government’s failure to develop the land it took in the 1974 acquisition.

In 2009 the Dangmebiawe clan of Ada entered into discussions with a major development compnay, to sell a parcel of 178 acres in Azizanya (including Kewunor) for the development of a luxury tourist resort. The Dangmebiawe Clan also began corresponding with the GTA, requesting the return of the piece of land acquired by the government under the 1974 Executive Instrument, claiming that the land was wrongfully acquired. In a letter from Atsu Gorleku & Co., the lawyers of the Dangmebiawe clan, to the Ministry of Tourism dated 3^rd August 2010, they claimed that the government in 1974 wrongfully paid compensation to William D. Nanor (a member of the Tetegah family). This, they say, was a fraudulent acquisition, because the Tetegah family did not own the land. However, others claim that the Tetegah family did, in fact, own the land and that the acquisition was therefore legitimate. Although a record of the sale no longer exists (if it ever did), a site plan constructed in 1931 to settle boundary disputes between Futuenya and Ada Foah reflects the Tetegah family as the rightful owners.

After executives of the development company discovered that the parcel of land in question was vested in the name of the GTA, they began dealing with the GTA directly. This prompted several letters from the Dangmebiawe clan to the Ministry of Tourism. In January 2011, Nene Osabutey Lamuer Okumo III (divisional chief and head of the Dangmebiawe clan) sent a letter to late President John Evans Atta Mills requesting the release of the Azizanya land to the Dangmebiawe, and in September of that year he sent a further request to the Lands Commission to release the land to the development company, following a settlement between the clan and the company.

In August 2012 the GTA sent a letter with an attached site plan to the Lands Commission requesting a lease on the Kewunor land so they could sub-lease it to the development company. The request was approved in December 2012. The Ghana Tourist Authority was granted a Government Mixed Use Lease on 72.94 acres of land in Azizanya for a period of 50 years. The lease was to take effect on 1^st August 2012.

In October 2013, the development company sent a formal vacate notice to Kewunor Acting Chief Torgburi Badzi insisting that all structures be removed from the site within 30 days. On 20^th November the company held a sod-cutting ceremony* on the premises of Midas Beach Camp, to which they invited Azizanya Assemblyman Tettech Akli to appear as an honoured guest, but failed to notify the people of Kewunor and proprietors of Midas and Maranatha Beach Camps.

As the situation currently stands, according to Wilfred, no proposal for compensation has been made to the 1,500 people in the Kewunor community who will be displaced if the luxury development goes ahead. A proposal for relocation has been made to a site very close to Kewunor. However, the site is extremely small and would not host the entire community. Moreover, the proposed area in a natural lagoon. During high tide, the site is underwater.

Wilfred has been offered compensation of GHC 30,000 (£6000) but no relocation proposal. He is not willing to accept this offer, which is inadequate compensation for the destruction of his entire livelihood.

The community has many complaints about the proposed development, aside from failure to relocate and failure to provide any or any adequate compensation. At present, Midas and Maranatha Beach Camps are frequented by the community. New luxurious resorts will be out of reach of the average Ghanaian. Wilfred believes that local people will not be allowed to frequent the resorts.

The community make their livelihoods from fishing. They are uniquely situated on a narrow stretch of land with the ocean on one side and the Volta river on the other. It is unlikely they will be able to continue their fishing businesses in another location.

The community houses a school which is funded from Maranatha Beach Camp’s profits, and maintained by volunteers who stay at the camp. If the Camp no longer exists, the lifeblood of the school will be cut off.

The development company has said that their development will open up job opportunities for local people. However, the community are fishermen and will not have the relevant skills for working in the new development.

The proposed area for development is also a turtle nesting site, where giant turtles breed from August to December. The development may therefore have a major environmental impact. Moreover, Maranatha Beach Camp helps to fund turtle protection in the local area.

Wilfred is of the view that his community are being targeted because they are seen as “outsiders”. There is other land in the area that is currently not developed and where no one lives that the company could consider for their resort. The village of Kewunor is primarily Ewe speaking, whilst those in the surrounding area speak Ada. Mr Dzinado says that he thinks this is one of the reasons that the District Assembly has failed to fund schools in Kewunor and why they are willing to sacrifice their land.

The issue is enormously complex, but I am moved at Wilfred’s commitment to his cause. Meeting him and working on trying to understand the case was the most rewarding work I have done in Ghana so far. HRAC is now taking up this case. 

*A sod-cutting ceremony is a traditional ceremony that celebrates the first day of a construction project.