Over three hundred squatters living in kiosks along the Tema motorway have been thrown out, after the Ministry of Roads and Tema West Assembly flattened the structures.
The unannounced demolition exercise was carried Wednesday under watch of heavy armed police personnel.
The area, known as the Kiosk Estate, is about two acres and because the settlement is unplanned, open defecation is a common sight, as the squatters hide in the bushes along the motorway to egest.
Additionally, a lot of criminal activities go on at the Kiosk Estate. Some time in 2017, the Minister for Road, Amoako Atta, sent a caution to the squatters at the Kiosk Estate and all other such inhabitants along the Tema motorway to vacate before the Ministry visited any harsh exercise on them.
Some of the squatters who saw the seriousness in the Minister’s warning, quickly moved out, however, the others, who considered the caution as one of the usual political orders, corked their ears and continued to grow their family in the shanty area.
Indeed, commuters who approached the Kiosk Estate were always welcomed by a pungent smell, and that, the Road Minister said, could not persist.
The Kiosk Estate is close to companies and cosy residential areas and considering the total darkness in the estate, many commuters on the Tema-Accra motorway have expressed fear that criminals who attack passengers on the motorway could be coming from this place.
These and many concerns raised by the companies and residents at the cosy residential areas.
When the Awake News team arrived at the scene, many residents were seen rushing to collect their portable belongings and calling other residents who were not at home at the time of the demolition, to dash
back to salvage their properties.
Some of the affected squatters expressed worry of the situation, and wondered where they could temporarily put up and keep their belongings.
According to them, somebody who claimed ownership of the land they lived on gave them three months to relocate and they were making plans to move out.
They, therefore, expressed shock at the abrupt flattening of their structures today, when the three months’ deadline was not due.
As uncontrollable tears flooded the faces of women and children especially, the operators of the bulldozers accelerated the earth moving machine the more to grind the wooden structures to end the existence of the Kiosk Estate.
Story by Umar Sheriff / awakenewsonline.com
