In the warm up to the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) promised head porters (Kayayei ke hen) that if it wins power, it will build hostels and WASH facilities at Old Fadama also known as Sodom and Gomorrah to improve their living conditions.

The campaign promise was well received because majority of the Kayayei migrated from the northern part of Ghana to seek greener pastures south, due to the wide economic and development disparities.

Most of the head porters sleep in the open at the peril of the weather, thieves, rapists and other dangers.

Interestingly, the promise was condemned by the then incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) government that it is hollow and not a tool for poverty alleviation.

Indeed, the 2016 campaign promise found its way in the 2020 budget statement of now NPP Government in Parliament.

Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister for Finance and Economic Development, was categorical that sod cutting for the construction of the hostels would take place in December 2019.

This promise, notwithstanding, GH¢2 million seed capital for the head porters under the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP). Whether the fund got to the beneficiaries would be another topic for discussion.

However, despite the campaign promise to build hostels for Kayayei making its way in the 2020 budget, it was just recently in February and March 2023, that the government has cut sod to commence construction.

News reports had it that the government has break the ground for the construction of the hostels at Agbogbloshie and Adjen Kotoku in Accra Metropolitan and Ga West Municipal assemblies respectively.

The specific site for the hostel construction at Agbogbloshie was the former Onion Market, where the traders were ejected and relocated to Adjen Kotoku.

The hurdles

The tides following the announcement of the construction of the hostels had been vexation, exasperation and out pour of fury from the Ga people.

In fact, two opposing factions of the Ga Stool – Nii Tackie Adama Latse II and Nii Tackie Teiko Tsuru II – have all kicked against this development and for the first time agreed on a common purpose.

Nii Tackie Adama Latse II told journalists at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, 9th March, 2023, that the government was engaging in illegality.

He said the law governing lands acquired compulsory by the state is explicit on what the government should do in failure to appropriate land for its intended purpose.

The Supreme leader of the Gas said the government is under obligation to give it back to its alluvial owners unless otherwise they refuse to accept it.

Regrettably, he murmured that the government has not given them that first option but has decided to utilize the land for another purpose.

Nii Adama Latse II stated that although he will not antagonise the youth to cause mayhem, he is fully in support of their intention to demonstrate against the government.

He added youth will go on the street to protect the decision on March 22.

Nii Tackie explained that Ga area such as James Town, Osu, Teshie, and Nungua are choked and yet the government is given priority to others over them on a land that belongs to them.