The Gyaasehene of Offuman, Nana Owusu Nkwatabisa Duah, also known as Nana Bossman, has been dragged before the Techiman Circuit Court for developing on a piece of land Offuman, a community in the Techiman North District of the Bono East Region without a building permit.
According to the Techiman North District Physical Planning Office, calls by the authorities for him to stop developing the said piece of land and obtain a building permit proved futile as he rather intensified work on the land.
Upon hearing the case on 23rd June 2021, the Techiman Circuit Court placed the chief in police custody and later granted him bail in the sum of GHS 20,000.00 pending a ruling on the 8th of July 2021.
The Techiman North District Physical Planning Officer, John Obeng Mensah, in an interview, said the Chief was cautioned against the move, but he did not listen.
“In Ghana, the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act 2016, Act 925, sections 113 and 117, do not allow any person in this country to develop without any permit and that is exactly what Nana Bossman (Chief) is doing. I was given a call from my office that someone has started a building project within the area, and I asked him if the person has a development permit, but they couldn’t testify.”
“So I arranged for an assembly pick-up and I came around and met him personally and gave him the requirements that will help him obtain the development permit. So he followed me to my office and I asked him to tread cautiously and that the laws of the land will not let him go free if he is apprehended, but unfortunately he didn’t listen to me.”
John Obeng Mensah further stated that a lot of Ghanaians build without obtaining the right permits, which is against the law.
He thus advised the public against such actions.
