Woodworkers petition President Mills

A group calling itself “Concerned Woodworkers at Anloga in Kumasi” has appealed to the government to ensure their relocation to the Sokoban Wood Village.

They described as unfair the delay by the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) to resettle them almost one year after their structures were demolished at the Anloga Junction to pave way for work to begin on the Oforikrom-Asokwa by-pass project.

Addressing a press conference in Kumasi at the weekend Mr Austin Bedi, their Spokesperson, appealed to President John Atta Mills to intervene so that they are relocated as early as possible to help in sustaining their livelihood and the wood industry.

He said the RCC had disappointed them as per the agreement they had before the demolition because they were supposed to have been relocated in November last year but all efforts to resettle them had failed.

The Group, he said, would have no other choice than to hit the streets soon in protest about the injustice being meted out to them.

Mr Bedi said it was disheartening that whilst some of their colleagues had long been relocated their fate was in the limbo and added “We are suspected that officials at the RCC and Kumasi Metropolitan Authority are only giving excuses to buy time”.

He said the Group would also appreciate it if an investigation was conducted into the management of the wood enclave as most of the social amenities there had deteriorated at an alarming rate.

Mr Bedi cited the breakdown of a 30-seater toilet facility which had come with its own negative sanitary conditions at the village, choked gutters, damaged septic tanks and the springing up of illegal wooden structures.

“We are very much concerned about the springing up of illegal structures at the new enclave and the selective manner the Metropolitan Authority decided to demolish some of them, leaving about 30 of such structures without any tangible reason,” he said

Source: GNA