The constractor in cloth at the construction site
There was a near clash on Saturday afternoon when eight armed policemen stormed Odumasi No1 in the Sunyani West District of the Brong Ahafo to stop work on a borehole which is being constructed by the Member of Parliament for the area, Ignatius Baffour Awuah.
The police, according to an eyewitness, visited the site around 12:15pm and told the workers at the site to stop work because of an order from above.
He said after the warning, the policemen left the site, and when the contractor, who was not at the site, was informed of the police instructions, he told the workers to continue since the traditional council and the assembly had endorsed it.
The contractor, Opoku Nyame, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, said he had information that the police had warned his workers to stop work at the site so he went there to verify things for himself.
He said at exactly 2:14pm, about eight policemen came to the site fully armed, thereby scaring children and other people who were around away. They seized the workers’ tools and eight bags of cement they were using to work.
He asked them of their mission but they told him it was an order from above and if he had any questions, he should ask the right persons.
Explaining to DAILY GUIDE how he got the contract, he said the MP for Sunyani West told him a few days ago to build a mechanised borehole and attach it to the old one which was at the same place because the queenmother had complained to him about the difficulty they faced when fetching water from the old pipe.
When DAILY GUIDE visited the queenmother of Odumase No1, Nana Abena Boatemaa, she was shocked and expressed worry over the development and called on her people to take it easy.
According to her, some months ago, she lobbied the MP to construct a mechanised borehole to ease the plight of the people as regards access to potable water.
Nana Boatemaa said she went to the assembly to speak to the necessary people and contacted those she needed to talk to so she did not understand why the project had become a political issue as people were claiming.
“I pleaded with the MP to do it for me so when he told me the project was beginning, I was very excited and didn’t know people will politicise it,” she lamented.
When DAILY GUIDE spoke to some residents of the area, they accused the Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Kwadwo Nyamekye Marfo, and the assemblywoman for the area, who is also the women’s organiser of the NDC in Odumase, Dorcas Kyeremaah, for ordering the police to seize the workers’tools.
The residents alleged that Kyeremaah gave that order because the regional minister had plans of building a borehole for them.
They also alleged that the assemblywoman had been managing the old one for the past six years but was unable to give account to the traditional council when it asked her to do so.
Attempts to talk to the assembly woman failed.
From Vivianna Mensah, Sunyani
