Farmers in three communities in the Birim Central Municipal Area last Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration against a Turkish company, ARDA Grup, for allegedly destroying their farms.
Amidst drumming and singing and clad in red and black apparel, the protestors from Akyem Asene, Batabi and Akyem Manso, demanded compensation from the company undertaking a water project in the area.
They claimed that the company had deprived them of their livelihood as their cocoa farms, oil palm plantations and food crop farms that provided income for them had all been destroyed.
Some of them complained that they were unable to pay their children’s school fees as a result of the situation.
The spokesperson for the aggrieved farmers, Mr Yaw Badu Twumasi, told the Daily Graphic that they had been struggling vainly to collect compensation from the company since the crops were destroyed in October 2015 as the management of the company had been tossing them up and down.
When the Daily Graphic contacted the Project Manager of ARDA on the issue, he said the Ghana Water Company Limited was responsible for the payment of compensation and not the company.
The Board Chairman of ARDA Grup, Mr Chris Brobby, who spoke to this reporter on phone from Accra, appealed to the aggrieved farmers to exercise restraint as the ARDA Grup, the Ministries of Finance and Water Resources, Works and Housing and the management of Ghana Water Company Limited, would meet as early as possible to find a solution to their problem.
