The Municipal Chief Executive of the Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly, Nurudeen Hamidan, and two workers of the assembly face a possible imprisonment for their action said to have prejudiced a court case.
The three are said to have demolished a four-storey building belonging to a business developer in in the municipality, despite an application for injunction that sought to restrain them from entering a disputed land in the municipality to demolish a building on it.
Although Mr. Hamidan had October 22 made appearance in court on the motion for injunction against him and his assembly, he went to the said land to demolish the building.
He grounded his action on claims that the businessman, Mr Aminu Sahabi, had no building permit, as well as a claim that the building was sited on a Ghana Water Company service line.
Ashanti Regional Minister Peter Anarfi Mensah, who had gone to the site on October 23 to gather first hand information on the issue, ordered an investigation into the matter but Mr. Hamidan showed up at the site arguing that the building was wrongfully located.
He produced documents to prove that the Assembly had refused to grant a permit for the construction of the building based on the claims that the land is a water service line; something that prompted the Regional Minister to immediately order the pulling down of the structure.
But the move, viewed as an affront to justice to justice, caused the businessman to initiate a contempt application against Mr Hamidan, an engineer of the assembly, Richard Omari Sarfo and operator of the bulldozer, on Akyeampong.
He is praying the Kumasi High Court to have the respondents committed for contempt of court for “wilfully and deliberately acting in a way and manner that brings the administration of justice into disrepute and prejudice the pending action.”
In his initial writ at the Court, the businessman accused the Mr. Hamidan of using his position to acquire the land that he [Sahabi] had legally acquired from the rightful owners.
But Mr Hamidan has refuted the allegations, indicating that the area had not been earmarked for development. He said the building would obstruct the distribution of water to both the Kumasi Metropolis and Asokore Mampong Municipality.
By: Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news|Ghana
Twitter: @steviekgh
