The Greater Accra regional minister, Henry Quartey, has served notice that some houses within the core zone of the Ramsar site in Tema will be demolished to clear the waterway leading to the lagoon.
Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance that have been designated under the criteria of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands for containing representative, rare or unique wetland types or for their importance in conserving biological diversity.
That of Tema has been encroached largely by developers and causing flooding in communities.
According to the Forestry Commission, the government acquired 4200 acres of the Ramsar site in 1998.
The Ramsar consists of buffer, transition, and core land. In all, the buffer and transition are all encroached, and out of the 1200 acres of the core land, 700 acres have been encroached upon and the remaining 500 is been filled with sand for development.
The MCE of Tema West, Anna Adukwei Addo disclosed that the over 4000 houses sitting on the Ramsar site are developed without a permit and pay no revenue to the government, using electricity and water.
Fred Dzakpata
