The youth of Buipe in the Central Gonja district have rubbished claims by land-dispute-rival, Mankpan traditional Area, accusing the chief of Buipe, Abdulai Jinapor II and District Chief Executive (DCE) Mustapha Mahama of plans to divert the construction of hospital project from Kabelpe to Buipe.
More than 200 residents of the Kabelpe community made up of Chiefs and Elders on Tuesday stormed the streets peacefully with placards to rally against plans to relocate the project.
The protesters wearing red rags walked from the community to the Buipe Township to petition the DCE. They directly accused the Buipewura and his son, Deputy Chief of Staff, Samuel Abu Jinapor of using political influence to relocate the project to a disputed and dangerous site.
They called for the removal of the DCE who they said misled President Akufo-Addo to cut the sod for the project to begin in Buipe despite contractors being already on site at Kabelpe.
But, in a news conference, Friday at the Buipewura’s palace in the Central Gonja District capital, several youth and chiefs of Buipe countered all claims of the Mankpan youth and called for “bipartisan approach to matters regarding the hospital.”
Chief Abdul Rahman Adams, leader of the Buipe youth, described the claims as “complete falsehood and orchestration to throw dust in the eyes of the general public” and that the hospital project was the outcome of longstanding lobbying efforts by Chiefs and people of Buipe Traditional Area.
“The fact of the matter is that the Chiefs and people of Buipe Traditional Area started appealing to Government for the building of a hospital at Buipe to solve the many health challenges in the area since time immemorial. Consequently, during the Gonjaland Youth Association Congress on 4th April 2015 at Buipe, His Excellency the former president John Dramani Mahama announced the approval of government to build a hospital and an accident Centre at Buipe,” the youth said in a prepared speech.
The Buipe youth said the 80 bed specialized hospital project for accident and emergency treatment was originally earmarked to be constructed at Bilsikura but was moved following a similar protest by the Mankpan youth, who are bent on having the project sited in Mankpan land.
To bolster their claims, the Buipe youth and Chiefs showed a dossier of documents about the project to reporters and challenged their counterparts in Mankpan to show any proof of their claims.
“Surprisingly, in 2017 a site was seen being cleared at Kabelpe with a signpost reading Buipe Hospital Project. This therefore raised concerns as to why the sudden change of site. This led to further investigations which proved that no stakeholder was aware of that changes. Consequently, REGSEC met on the subject and directed that the site be moved back to Bilsikura the original proposed site of the said project,” Chief Abdul Rahman disclosed.
He continued; “However, Mankpan Traditional Area objected to the directives by REGSEC with reasons that the land between the Lee and Sor stream is a litigated area between Buipewura and Mankpanwura.”
The youth also refuted allegations of influence peddling against Buipewura and his son, a Deputy Chief of Staff, describing them as “lies.”
“We are tempted to believing that there is somebody with personal sentiments who is wrongly influencing our colleagues from the Mankpan Traditional Area into such a needless exercise of demonstration. We wish to assure all and sundry that all is well and that the project will soon start at exactly the place where H.E Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo cut the sod,” the youth declared.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/1003.5FM/Eliasu Tanko
