Riot police armed with rifles and tear gas were deployed to the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) compound in Tamale in the Northern region after an auction of confiscated properties belonging to law offenders turned chaotic, compelling a suspension of the operation.
The chaos broke out Thursday noon as the Ghana Revenue Authority department organised a routine operation to sell off to public fleet of vehicles whose owners could not meet range of fine conditions imposed on them.
The exercise was under the auspices of the Customs divisions of the regional GRA but was being done inside the BNI building near the SSNIT office complex by a private auctioneer.
The auction was announced in the morning and by noon scores of hasty bidders had flooded the compound and begun grabbing vehicles and earmarking other goods.
However, confusion started to build up in the yard when the bidders, mostly sympathisers of the ruling New Patriotic Party engaged in hot exchanges over the goods.
The confusion, however, escalated when they turned their anger on the private auctioneer forcing BNI officers to whisk him away to a confinement before calling for reinforcement.
The bidders were angry at the auctioneer because he announced a different price for the vehicles which they thought were all being auctioned at a fixed price of GHC3000.
They had haphazardly grabbed the fleet of vehicles including one long truck loaded of yellow gallons of unspecified contents, and were waiting for official evaluation and payment before the auctioneer announced to them each vehicle had it own price, sparking uproar from the sympathisers.
There were different set of vehicles parked in the yard and some who grabbed bigger ones were now asked to pay amounts ranging from only GH10000 to GH150000 which the bidders protested as highly prized.
The commissioner retreated, was taken away to an office where he was kept under guards before the reinforcement came.
Initial deployment of about 10 armed police failed to control the angry crowd of buyers who were threatening to forcibly take custody of the vehicles until more arrived.
The standoff disrupted the auction as the private auctioneer fled the scene under security protection and declared the vehicles unsold and unavailable, suspending the operation indefinitely.
There were elements of provocations after the man left the compound but the armed security forces keeping guard maintained restraints.
A bidder who introduced himself to Starr News as member of the NPP demanded the removal of regional GRA boss accusing him of sabotaging the government.
According to him, during the last administration under the NDC, all confiscated vehicles were sold at low prices and to only it members without any issues.
He said, unlike years ago under the NDC, the GRA regional officer was conniving with the private auctioneer to sell the vehicles at exorbitant prices to established garages in the region.
He attacked the GRA boss with insults for opening the auction to members of other political parties and genuine businessmen and vowed to influence his transfer from the region.
“Alhaji Dobila (referring to the private auctioneer), you are our enemy. They did not write my name, they told us they would write names, is that our reward?”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
