Five persons, led by an Accra-based legal practitioner, Mr Edward Marshall Kobblah Penu, have filed an application at the Ho High Court seeking a committal for contempt of court against the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Kweku Agyemang Mensah.
According to the plaintiffs, the minister should be committed to a custodial prison term for his flagrant, willful disrespect, disregard and disobedience to an order of the court dated February 12, 2015.
Joined in the action are Alhaji Ziblim Yakubu, the Chief Director of the ministry; Mr Owusu Ansah, Director, Hydrological Department of the ministry; the Deputy Project Manager of Dredging International Cyprus Limited, Mr Robert Molino and the Project Controller of Dredging International Cyprus Limited, Mr Sofi Vereecken.
The other plaintiffs in the case are Messrs Benjamin Atsu, Zikpuitor Akpatsu Fenu, Kareem Abu and Alexander Pons Petro.
The plaintiffs contend that the defendants disregarded a mandatory injunction order from the High Court ordering them to act within 40 days to dredge and reclaim the land at Balesi Marshall Island, a community near Ada, to protect it from being totally submerged by the sea as a result of the work being undertaken there.
According to the plaintiffs, the island was almost submerged by the sea, which had destroyed the houses and properties of the indigenes as a result of the Ada Coastal Protection Works being undertaken, managed, directed and supervised by the Ministry of Works and Housing and Dredging International Limited.
Reliefs
The plaintiffs have prayed the court for an order awarding compensation to them by the defendants for loss of properties, amenities and facilities on the island.
They also want an order that the defendants reclaim a total of 21.5 acres of plaintiffs’ land submerged as a result of the project activities of the ministry and the dredging company with a further order directing them to erect protective groins to protect same from further destruction as they had done to other communities in the Ada Foah Shoreline eastwards from the estuary.
The plaintiffs also claim against the defendants, an order compelling them to take immediate steps and/or to implement measures to prevent further adverse impact as a result of the project engaged in by the ministry and the dredging company on the environment, the plaintiffs’ land and properties.
The plaintiffs prayed for an order restraining the defendants from continuing their activities under the Ada coastal protection works until steps were taken to reclaim the land lost by the plaintiffs and erect protective groins to prevent further devastating impact on the environment and on the plaintiffs’ land and properties as well as damages and cost.
Affidavit
In their supporting affidavit, the plaintiffs averred that when the Ada coastal protection works (referred to as the Ada Sea Defence Project) started and the catastrophic impact on plaintiffs became manifest, they met and wrote a letter to the defendants calling their attention to the devastating impact and irreparable damage of the project on their ancestral land and properties, but defendants had been insensitive to their plight.
According to the affidavit, the plaintiffs, upon filing the suit, obtained an interlocutory injunction for 10 days against the defendants which was duly served on all defendants, yet they failed to take any step to protect the plaintiffs, their settlements and properties from total destruction.
It said by the neglect of the defendants and refusal to take them into account when conceiving the project, the protective sandbar embankment that separated the sea from the river shoreline of their ancestral lands and which acted as a protective shield from the direct contact with the devastating sea had completely been eroded by the activities of the defendants especially Dredging International Limited, unleashing irreparable damage and hardship on them.
According to the affidavit, the 40 days timeline within which the respondents had been mandatorily decreed to comply with the judgment before the final determination of the case expired as far back as March 22, 2015; seven good months outside the order, but the respondents had disregarded, despised and ridiculed the court and the said order and had refused to comply with same with impunity.
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