A narration of how a foreign company acquired thousands of hectares of land from the people of Breweniase in the Oti Region for a bargain price has left participants in a national symposium shocked, compelling a call for assistance for re-negotiation for the landowners.
The company, known as Hirrackles Oil Palm Company from Cameroun, reportedly acquired the land for palm oil plantation in 2008 after an agreement to pay the farmers $5 per hectare for a period of 50 years.
Before they signed the agreement, the company reportedly had promised that it was going to pay them some lump sums for their land in addition to the $5 per hectare agreement.
That, however, did not happen.
“We have sold our destiny, and now carrying our death warrant wherever we go,” a worried landowner, Johannes Kofibi, said at the symposium organised last Wednesday by Caritas Ghana on Protocols and Legal Procedures on Land Acquisition in Ghana.
The symposium was to launch a report on a study on land rights and acquisition of land in four communities, namely Tanchara in the Wa Diocese (Upper West Region), Babator in the Damongo Diocese (Savannah Region), Subinso in the Koforidua Diocese (Eastern Region) and Breweniase in the Jasikan Diocese of the Oti Region.
Caritas Ghana, a Catholic charity organisation, undertook the baseline survey on land ownership and land acquisition in the communities to be used for public awareness creation and advocacy with key institutions responsible for land administration.
The deception
Mr Kofibi said the 86 landowners were first hosted at a hotel where they were given GH¢20,000 cedis to share and asked to sign the document to lease their lands, which they were made to understand would later become beneficial to them with the start of the project.
He said the farmers, however, lost their livelihoods thereafter and were not even allowed to enter their lands to fetch even firewood, medicine or hunt because the company now owned the lands.
Mr Kofibi said although they agreed to lease the land, they made a mistake by not being diligent enough, thereby signing “our death warrant”.
Indicating that they had already committed themselves but wanted a fair deal, Mr Kofibi said: “We, Breweniase people, have leased a total of 3,715 hectares of land to the company.
We are only bothered about the payment.
They pay us $5 per hectare.
That is our headache.
We have signed it for 50 years”.
