Hilton Trasacco Development Threatens Fishing Community in Ada
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Victoria Okoye
Mar 12, 2018, 5:09:08 AM3/12/18
to the-urban-...@googlegroups.com
Happy belated Independence Day to all.
On a second and less celebratory note - anyone with more information
or currently working on this? And thanks to Kuukuwa Manful for sharing
this with me:
Hilton Trasacco Development Threatens Fishing Community in Ghana
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hilton-trasacco-development-threatens-fishing-community-sarah-young/
A fishing community nestled between the Volta River and the Gulf of
Guinea first heard about the potential development of a luxury resort
and boat marina on their land in the form of a vacate notice in
October of 2013. The notice indicated that the community had 30 days
to remove themselves, their homes, and their businesses from the
estuary and recommended no place for them to resettle and offered no
compensation. The community includes a beach camp, a school funded and
built by the beach camp, several community churches, a community
center, and a harbor for the fishermen’s boats. It also includes
several shrines and 200 homes.
The vacate notice was retracted after the sod-cutting ceremony and
relocation was promised, but plans never made known to most residents.
Youth leader, Winfred Dzinado, who created the eco-tourism destination
to fund the construction of a school in the community began to search
for answers but was offered no detail about where the community would
go and how they would survive being displaced from the river and the
sea where they make their meager income. Over the next few years,
lawyers mysteriously dropped out of the case after the community paid
for their help, and details around the development were next to
nothing until August when I uncovered a newly formed international
partnership between Trasacco and the Hilton Hotels franchise. The
chief architect, surveyor, and development manager have been dishonest
in communications about their plans and have already begun taking
$100,000 deposits for condos that have yet to be built.
Most recently the lead plaintiff, the next in line for the chieftaincy
of the community, was called into a tribunal with the local chiefs in
Ada Foah and his life was threatened if he refused to withdraw the
case from court. The community’s lawyer believes that the money sent
to withdraw the case came from Trasacco, as did the urgency to
separate the chief from the community and threaten him to withdraw.
The community is planning to continue forward with their efforts by
adding plaintiffs and continuing the fight for their land in court.
Further questions can be directed to the following:
CONTACT
Community Leader, Winfred Dzinado +233 54 349 9567, +44 7518 49123
Junior Opinion Leader: Mankwa Seth +233 54 286 0578
Beach Camp Manager: Chris Kujo Zebby +233 24 838 0407
Assemblyman: Torgbui Michael +233 24 352 8250
Researcher + PhD Candidate: Netty Carey netty...@gmail.com
Legal Summary: The Land and People of Ada
This is a brief history of the village of Kewunor compiled from oral
histories and interviews given by Nene Tetteyga, Ada Foah Chief and
landlord; Torgbui Badzi, Acting Chief of Kewunor; Patrick Yetiekpor,
son of Kewunor’s first settler; and Emmanuel Lab-Donatt, a young
member of the Terkpebiawe clan. Much of this information is also
supported by C.O.C. Amate in his book The Making of Ada and a letter
written by Kewunor’s first settler, Emmanuel Yetiekpor.
The municipality now known as Ada or Dangme East District was settled
by four Dangme-speaking clans who 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. The Adibiawe was the first
clan to settle and they occupied the area from Agbanaka Valley to Kafa
Valley. The Lomobiawe settled next in Sege and the Togbloku area. Next
came the Terkpebiawe to occupy the area from Anyaman to Patukope in
the south. Finally, the Dangmebiawe settled from Songutso-ekpa to the
estuary where the Volta River meets the Gulf of Guinea.
After the Katamanso War in 1826 the Great Nene Tetteyga of the
Lomobiawe clan founded the town of Ada Foah and purchased the land
from its allodial owners, the Dangmebiawe clan. Since that time, the
whole of Ada Foah land has been owned by the Tetteyga family, and it
is the only privately owned property in Ada. At the time when the
Great Tetteyga bought the peninsula, it was heavily forested, and the
sea was threatening to overtake the land. Nevertheless, Tetteyga
believed that the land was valuable, and his children and
grandchildren have been enjoying the land for nearly 200 years. At
that time, the geography of the area was different from present day;
sea erosion and new land emerging from the riverside have altered the
landscape. The Tetteyga family settled boundary disputes with the
neighboring Futuenya people in 1911 and 1931. During the second
dispute, when Ghana was known as Gold Coast, a surveyor was sent to
construct a site plan and settle the dispute, and elders from both
Futuenya and Ada Foah showed their agreement by adding their
signatures to the document, which is still kept in the Tetteyga
family’s records.
The easternmost stretch of the Ada Foah peninsula, now known as
Kewunor, was settled by an Ewe fisherman named Emmanuel Yetiekpor. The
shifting of land boundaries due to erosion from the ocean makes the
exact date of the Kewunor settlement unclear. However, from 1909
Yetiekpor and his family had been living on a portion of the land that
is now in the sea. At that time the mass of land separating the ocean
from the Volta River was much wider than present day. The Ewe people
walked from their place at the oceanside to the riverside where
Kewunor now rests to fish in the river. Many other families came to
join Yetiekpor. A man named Dafliso brought the net for ocean fishing,
and the settlers learned to exploit their unique estuary environment,
fishing in both the Volta River and the Gulf of Guinea.
In exchange for three (3) bottles of Akpeteshie, the land and coconut
trees were given to Yetiekpor under the authority of the Ada Foah
chief (a member of the Tetteyga family) and he became the first chief
of Kewunor. It is said that the present day village settlement was
established finally either in 1940 or 1949. For the past century, the
descendants of these first settlers have lived peacefully and
undisturbed on the peninsula, making their living from fishing in both
water bodies, adapting to the unpredictable movements of the sea, and
have known no other chief but Tetteyga and his descendants.
In 1974, under an Executive Instrument dated 26 April, the Ghana
Tourist Board under Kofi Annan acquired 159.52 acres on the delta from
Nene Tetteyga for use in tourism development. The land was surveyed,
coconut trees counted, and full monetary compensation paid to the
Tetteyga 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, cared for the land, and cultivated
coconut plantations. In 1990, the Tourist Board under different
leadership approached the Tetteyga 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.
The people of Kewunor have since been undisturbed by any disputes over
land ownership, encroaching development projects, and government
acquisitions. It was not until Trasacco Estates Development Company
Ltd. (TEDC) set their sights on the land for tourism development that
the residents of the village came to know of the Dangmebiawe clan and
the complex ownership history of the Ada Foah peninsula.
Trasacco and the Dangmebiawe
The following is a summary of correspondence, agreements, and events
concerning the plan by TEDC to purchase the land of Kewunor for a
tourism development project that would bring a high class tourist
resort and marina to the area.
In 2009 the Dangmebiawe clan of Ada entered into discussions with TEDC
to sell a parcel of 178 acres in Azizanya for the development of a
high class tourist resort and marina. At least as early as March 8,
2010 the Dangmebiawe began corresponding with the Ghana Tourist Board,
requesting the return of the piece of land acquired by the government
under the Executive Instrument of 26 April, 1974, claiming 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
August, 2010 they claimed that the government in 1974 wrongfully paid
compensation to William D. Nanor (a member of the Tetteyga family and
direct descendent of the great Tetteyga). This, they say, was a
fraudulent acquisition, because the Tetteyga family did not own the
land. According to current Ada Foah Chief and Kewunor landlord, Nene
Tetteyga and other sources, however, the land was purchased by the
Tetteyga family from the Dangmebiawe in the 1820s. Although a record
of the sale no longer exists, the site plan constructed in 1931 to
settle boundary disputes between Futuenya (Otrokpe) and Ada Foah
reflects the Tetteyga family as the proper owners of the place.
After executives of Trasacco discovered that the parcel of land in
question was vested in the name of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) in
2010, they began dealing with the GTB directly. This prompted several
strongly worded letters from the Dangmebiawe clan like the one sent to
the Ministry of Tourism. In January of 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 request to the Lands Commission to release the land to
Trasacco, per a lease agreement the clan had reached with the company.
It is unclear from the documentation we were able to obtain whether
the Dangmebiawe clan’s allodial claim to the land was ever restored as
they requested. It appears, however, as though all agreements
concerning Trasacco’s interest in the land were channelled through the
Ghana Tourist Board (later Ghana Tourism Authority).
On 22 August 2012 the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) sent a letter with
an attached site plan to the Lands Commission requesting a lease on
the Kewunor land to the GTA so they could sub-lease it to Trasacco.
(It might be worth noting that this was a repeat of a request from
2010, and it is unknown why—or whether—the business was stalled for
almost the whole of 2011 and 2012.) On 14 December 2012, the Lands
Commission notified the GTA of their approval of the request and the
GTA was granted a Government Mixed Use Lease on 72.94 acres of land in
Azizanya for a period of 50 years. According to the letter the lease
was to take effect 1 August 2012.
On 8 March 2013 Trasacco, by way of the GTA, made payments totalling
GHC 226,885 to the Lands Commission to formalize the agreement.
(Because the land is vested in the GTA for tourism development,
Trasacco pays the GTA who in turn pays the Lands Commission.) Trasacco
is also to pay a nominal rent fee annually of GHC 7,295. Seven months
later, on 21 October Ian Morris, managing director of Trasacco Estate
Development Ltd. sent a formal vacate notice to Kewunor Acting Chief
Torgbui Badzi insisting that all structures be removed from the site
within 30 days. On 20 November Trasacco held a sod-cutting ceremony on
the premises of Midas Beach Camp, to which they invited Azizanya
Assemblyman Tetteh Akli to appear as an honoured guest, but failed to
notify the people of Kewunor and proprietors of Midas and Maranatha
beach camps. The same day, Morris sent another letter to Torgbui Badzi
apologizing and retracting the vacate notice. In the letter, Morris
pledged to relocate the village to a ‘suitable’ plot of land. As of
February 2018, Kewunor residents remain unsure of Trasacco’s plans and
have not been notified of the site for the proposed relocation."
On a second and less celebratory note - anyone with more information
or currently working on this? And thanks to Kuukuwa Manful for sharing
this with me:
Hilton Trasacco Development Threatens Fishing Community in Ghana
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hilton-trasacco-development-threatens-fishing-community-sarah-young/
A fishing community nestled between the Volta River and the Gulf of
Guinea first heard about the potential development of a luxury resort
and boat marina on their land in the form of a vacate notice in
October of 2013. The notice indicated that the community had 30 days
to remove themselves, their homes, and their businesses from the
estuary and recommended no place for them to resettle and offered no
compensation. The community includes a beach camp, a school funded and
built by the beach camp, several community churches, a community
center, and a harbor for the fishermen’s boats. It also includes
several shrines and 200 homes.
The vacate notice was retracted after the sod-cutting ceremony and
relocation was promised, but plans never made known to most residents.
Youth leader, Winfred Dzinado, who created the eco-tourism destination
to fund the construction of a school in the community began to search
for answers but was offered no detail about where the community would
go and how they would survive being displaced from the river and the
sea where they make their meager income. Over the next few years,
lawyers mysteriously dropped out of the case after the community paid
for their help, and details around the development were next to
nothing until August when I uncovered a newly formed international
partnership between Trasacco and the Hilton Hotels franchise. The
chief architect, surveyor, and development manager have been dishonest
in communications about their plans and have already begun taking
$100,000 deposits for condos that have yet to be built.
Most recently the lead plaintiff, the next in line for the chieftaincy
of the community, was called into a tribunal with the local chiefs in
Ada Foah and his life was threatened if he refused to withdraw the
case from court. The community’s lawyer believes that the money sent
to withdraw the case came from Trasacco, as did the urgency to
separate the chief from the community and threaten him to withdraw.
The community is planning to continue forward with their efforts by
adding plaintiffs and continuing the fight for their land in court.
Further questions can be directed to the following:
CONTACT
Community Leader, Winfred Dzinado +233 54 349 9567, +44 7518 49123
Junior Opinion Leader: Mankwa Seth +233 54 286 0578
Beach Camp Manager: Chris Kujo Zebby +233 24 838 0407
Assemblyman: Torgbui Michael +233 24 352 8250
Researcher + PhD Candidate: Netty Carey netty...@gmail.com
Legal Summary: The Land and People of Ada
This is a brief history of the village of Kewunor compiled from oral
histories and interviews given by Nene Tetteyga, Ada Foah Chief and
landlord; Torgbui Badzi, Acting Chief of Kewunor; Patrick Yetiekpor,
son of Kewunor’s first settler; and Emmanuel Lab-Donatt, a young
member of the Terkpebiawe clan. Much of this information is also
supported by C.O.C. Amate in his book The Making of Ada and a letter
written by Kewunor’s first settler, Emmanuel Yetiekpor.
The municipality now known as Ada or Dangme East District was settled
by four Dangme-speaking clans who 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. The Adibiawe was the first
clan to settle and they occupied the area from Agbanaka Valley to Kafa
Valley. The Lomobiawe settled next in Sege and the Togbloku area. Next
came the Terkpebiawe to occupy the area from Anyaman to Patukope in
the south. Finally, the Dangmebiawe settled from Songutso-ekpa to the
estuary where the Volta River meets the Gulf of Guinea.
After the Katamanso War in 1826 the Great Nene Tetteyga of the
Lomobiawe clan founded the town of Ada Foah and purchased the land
from its allodial owners, the Dangmebiawe clan. Since that time, the
whole of Ada Foah land has been owned by the Tetteyga family, and it
is the only privately owned property in Ada. At the time when the
Great Tetteyga bought the peninsula, it was heavily forested, and the
sea was threatening to overtake the land. Nevertheless, Tetteyga
believed that the land was valuable, and his children and
grandchildren have been enjoying the land for nearly 200 years. At
that time, the geography of the area was different from present day;
sea erosion and new land emerging from the riverside have altered the
landscape. The Tetteyga family settled boundary disputes with the
neighboring Futuenya people in 1911 and 1931. During the second
dispute, when Ghana was known as Gold Coast, a surveyor was sent to
construct a site plan and settle the dispute, and elders from both
Futuenya and Ada Foah showed their agreement by adding their
signatures to the document, which is still kept in the Tetteyga
family’s records.
The easternmost stretch of the Ada Foah peninsula, now known as
Kewunor, was settled by an Ewe fisherman named Emmanuel Yetiekpor. The
shifting of land boundaries due to erosion from the ocean makes the
exact date of the Kewunor settlement unclear. However, from 1909
Yetiekpor and his family had been living on a portion of the land that
is now in the sea. At that time the mass of land separating the ocean
from the Volta River was much wider than present day. The Ewe people
walked from their place at the oceanside to the riverside where
Kewunor now rests to fish in the river. Many other families came to
join Yetiekpor. A man named Dafliso brought the net for ocean fishing,
and the settlers learned to exploit their unique estuary environment,
fishing in both the Volta River and the Gulf of Guinea.
In exchange for three (3) bottles of Akpeteshie, the land and coconut
trees were given to Yetiekpor under the authority of the Ada Foah
chief (a member of the Tetteyga family) and he became the first chief
of Kewunor. It is said that the present day village settlement was
established finally either in 1940 or 1949. For the past century, the
descendants of these first settlers have lived peacefully and
undisturbed on the peninsula, making their living from fishing in both
water bodies, adapting to the unpredictable movements of the sea, and
have known no other chief but Tetteyga and his descendants.
In 1974, under an Executive Instrument dated 26 April, the Ghana
Tourist Board under Kofi Annan acquired 159.52 acres on the delta from
Nene Tetteyga for use in tourism development. The land was surveyed,
coconut trees counted, and full monetary compensation paid to the
Tetteyga 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, cared for the land, and cultivated
coconut plantations. In 1990, the Tourist Board under different
leadership approached the Tetteyga 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.
The people of Kewunor have since been undisturbed by any disputes over
land ownership, encroaching development projects, and government
acquisitions. It was not until Trasacco Estates Development Company
Ltd. (TEDC) set their sights on the land for tourism development that
the residents of the village came to know of the Dangmebiawe clan and
the complex ownership history of the Ada Foah peninsula.
Trasacco and the Dangmebiawe
The following is a summary of correspondence, agreements, and events
concerning the plan by TEDC to purchase the land of Kewunor for a
tourism development project that would bring a high class tourist
resort and marina to the area.
In 2009 the Dangmebiawe clan of Ada entered into discussions with TEDC
to sell a parcel of 178 acres in Azizanya for the development of a
high class tourist resort and marina. At least as early as March 8,
2010 the Dangmebiawe began corresponding with the Ghana Tourist Board,
requesting the return of the piece of land acquired by the government
under the Executive Instrument of 26 April, 1974, claiming 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
August, 2010 they claimed that the government in 1974 wrongfully paid
compensation to William D. Nanor (a member of the Tetteyga family and
direct descendent of the great Tetteyga). This, they say, was a
fraudulent acquisition, because the Tetteyga family did not own the
land. According to current Ada Foah Chief and Kewunor landlord, Nene
Tetteyga and other sources, however, the land was purchased by the
Tetteyga family from the Dangmebiawe in the 1820s. Although a record
of the sale no longer exists, the site plan constructed in 1931 to
settle boundary disputes between Futuenya (Otrokpe) and Ada Foah
reflects the Tetteyga family as the proper owners of the place.
After executives of Trasacco discovered that the parcel of land in
question was vested in the name of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) in
2010, they began dealing with the GTB directly. This prompted several
strongly worded letters from the Dangmebiawe clan like the one sent to
the Ministry of Tourism. In January of 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 request to the Lands Commission to release the land to
Trasacco, per a lease agreement the clan had reached with the company.
It is unclear from the documentation we were able to obtain whether
the Dangmebiawe clan’s allodial claim to the land was ever restored as
they requested. It appears, however, as though all agreements
concerning Trasacco’s interest in the land were channelled through the
Ghana Tourist Board (later Ghana Tourism Authority).
On 22 August 2012 the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) sent a letter with
an attached site plan to the Lands Commission requesting a lease on
the Kewunor land to the GTA so they could sub-lease it to Trasacco.
(It might be worth noting that this was a repeat of a request from
2010, and it is unknown why—or whether—the business was stalled for
almost the whole of 2011 and 2012.) On 14 December 2012, the Lands
Commission notified the GTA of their approval of the request and the
GTA was granted a Government Mixed Use Lease on 72.94 acres of land in
Azizanya for a period of 50 years. According to the letter the lease
was to take effect 1 August 2012.
On 8 March 2013 Trasacco, by way of the GTA, made payments totalling
GHC 226,885 to the Lands Commission to formalize the agreement.
(Because the land is vested in the GTA for tourism development,
Trasacco pays the GTA who in turn pays the Lands Commission.) Trasacco
is also to pay a nominal rent fee annually of GHC 7,295. Seven months
later, on 21 October Ian Morris, managing director of Trasacco Estate
Development Ltd. sent a formal vacate notice to Kewunor Acting Chief
Torgbui Badzi insisting that all structures be removed from the site
within 30 days. On 20 November Trasacco held a sod-cutting ceremony on
the premises of Midas Beach Camp, to which they invited Azizanya
Assemblyman Tetteh Akli to appear as an honoured guest, but failed to
notify the people of Kewunor and proprietors of Midas and Maranatha
beach camps. The same day, Morris sent another letter to Torgbui Badzi
apologizing and retracting the vacate notice. In the letter, Morris
pledged to relocate the village to a ‘suitable’ plot of land. As of
February 2018, Kewunor residents remain unsure of Trasacco’s plans and
have not been notified of the site for the proposed relocation."
K. Ohene Sarfoh
Mar 17, 2018, 2:45:12 PM3/17/18
to the-urban-...@googlegroups.com
Victoria, it seems the article has been pulled from LinkedIn.
This is the first time I am coming across this story. Is there any thing the platform or individual members can do about it.
Ohene
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