Committee on Vakpo and Vakpo-Dunyo land dispute presents report

Ho, April 12, GNA - A committee set up in August last year by the Volta Regional Coordinating Council (VRCC) to investigate a land conflict between the people of Vakpo in the Kpando District and neighbouring Vakpo-Dunyo, a resettlement town, on Thursday presented its report to Mr Kofi Dzamesi, the Volta Regional Minister in Ho.

Mr Justice Elliot D.K. Adjabeng, a retired Supreme Court Judge, chaired the six-member committee that sat in Ho visited and heard submissions in the two bickering communities.Other members were Professor Clement Dorm Adzobu, Consultant and Environmentalist, Mrs Felicia Otchere-Darko, Chief State Attorney, Mr Augustine Edwin, Regional Lands Officer, Mr Abraham Klobodu, Regional Security Coordinator and Mr Emmanuel Ofori-Dankwa, a representative of the Volta River Authority (VRA).

Mr Adjabeng told journalists that the conflict was over a parcel of Vakpo land that the VRA acquired by Executive Instrument in 1969 for the resettlement of a group displaced by the damming of the Volta River.He said tension grew as the people of Vakpo entered lands within Vakpo-Dunyo, the resettlement area, without recourse to the VRA, suggesting they wanted to assert authority over the land.Mr Adjabeng said the committee had taken the positions and legitimate concerns of the two sides and that that there was another resettlement nearby for the people of Wusuta that was earlier taken by the VRA from Vakpo under the same circumstances but where there is no conflict.

Mr Dzamesi said the report would be studied by the VRCC and passed on to the Attorney General's Department for recommendations on its implementation.He commended the Vakpo and Dunyo communities for their cooperation "which has resulted in the success of the committee's work".

"Throughout the work of the Committee, the communities comported themselves and exercised the greatest restrain to avoid any further confrontations," Mr Dzamesi said.

12 April 07