Monday, September 27, 2010

RESPECT VARIOUS COURT RULINGS — Chief of Twedie (PAGE 13, SEPT 27, 2010)

THE Chief of Twedie in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region, Nana Kwarteng Panin Akosa II, has called on the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to respect various court rulings declaring the town as the rightful capital of the district.
Expressing his disappointment with the ministry over the stand taken on the matter relating to the siting of the district capital after the case had travelled from the High Court up to the Supreme Court with all decisions going in favour of Twedie, the chief said the people were law abiding and respected the rule of law and that was why they did not resort to violence but decided to use the courts to fight their case.
At a news conference at Twedie last Monday, attended by the chiefs and people of the area, he said that strangely, the ministry continued to show disrespect to the very laws that guided the nation.
In 2008, the ruling NPP government created the Atwima Kwanwoma District with the capital at Foase.
The siting of the capital raised tension in the area as Twedie swore never to allow that decision to stand.
The chiefs and people of Twedie consequently challenged the NPP government’s decision at the High Court by seeking an order to declare the siting of the capital at Foase null and void. This was granted.
Nana Akosa who filed that motion on behalf of his people, argued that in 2007, the then NPP government decided to create new assemblies out of some existing ones.
Among the newly created assemblies was the Atwima Kwanwoma District, which was created out of the then Atwima District.
He said the Executive Instrument 2007 which established the Atwima Kwanwoma District named Twedie as the capital of the new administration and never mentioned Foase as the capital.
The anticipated opening of Twedie as the capital gingered the chiefs and people of the town to reactivate all former local government projects in the town in preparation for the take off.
But they were to receive the shock of their lives because, on the day of the inauguration on February 29, 2008, Foase and not Twedie was inaugurated as the new capital.
This, the people of Twedie, would not accept because according to them, they had been made to understand that some of the factors the government took into consideration in siting the capital were the availability of residential quarters for the District Chief Executive and premises for members of the District Assembly, offices and police station, none of which existed at Foase.
According to the chief, Twedie was the local political seat of the colonial administration within the Atwima Kwanwoma Traditional Area since 1946, and as such Twedie should have been made the district capital and not Foase.
He stated that in terms of infrastructure facilities and development, Foase came nowhere near Twedie and therefore described the government’s decision then as “a travesty of justice”.

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