BUI residents dissatisfied with settlement package

The inhabitants of the Bui Authority Resettlement Camp near lama in the Bole District have entreated other communities, yet to be resettled by the Bui Authority, to be vigilant in whatever negotiations and agreements the Authority would engage them in, before they are resettled.

They also advised those communities to ensure that the memorandum of understanding explicitly states what would be due them, and when, in order to escape the "traumatic conditions" they were experiencing as a result of the resettlement.

The people, in separate interviews, called on the government and President John Evans Atta Mills in particular, to as a matter of urgency, come to their aid before their living conditions deteriorate from bad to worse.

On a recent visit to the camp by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, the inhabitants, in an interview with The Chronicle, entreated the government to review and ensure the immediate and full implementation of the resettlement package due them.

Issues raised by the people include the undue delay of the payment of compensation, infertility of the land given to them for crop farming, as well the small size of the houses built for them.

"Apart from the room sizes being very small, there are no spaces for expansion," was what virtually everyone who granted this reporter an interview complained.

"We have been warned by officials of the Bui Authority not to put up any structure any where here," one of the inhabitants who gave his name as George, said in broken Twi.

The warning, according to him, does not only restrict them from expanding their houses, but also providing shelter for their livestock.

They admitted that though their houses at the riverside were mud houses, they were spacious enough to provide convenient and comfortable shelters for them and their families, as well as their livestock.

They expressed the fear that "artificial famine'" may hit the camp, because they had no fertile land to produce food to feed their families, let alone get enough to sell for income, adding that they even have to buy foodstuffs.

"At the riverside, I had banana farm, and could also cultivate vegetables to earn something to support my home, but I'm now totally dependent on my husband," a woman, who pleaded anonymity for fear of victimisation, confided in this reporter.

'We are living in destitution now," was how a 56 year-old farmer, Alhassan, in a simple sentence, summed up the general conditions of the inhabitants of the camp.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Bui Authority, Mr. Jabesh Amissah-Arthur. in his earlier presentation to the Committee, disclosed that the Bui Authority's Resettlement and Community Support package includes room plus kitchen and bath, compensation for loss of economic trees at applicable Land Valuation Board rates, GH¢l00 for those who wouId want to relocate, GH¢50 to till new farmland, GH¢ 100 monthly income support for each household for one year, as well as livelihood enhancement assistance with economic activities.

But, the people of the resettlement camp have denied knowledge of most of the things elaborated upon by Mr. Amissahh Arthur, and doubted whether that was a new resettlement package, or they were also entitled to that package.