Sixteen (16) days after the Kobina-Andokrom-Anto-Aboso quarry explosion that killed six people, the chiefs and people of Assorko in the Shama District have described their non-inclusion in the nine-member committee to investigate the disastrous quarry explosion as disrespectful and selective.
The Chief of Assorko, Nana Brekrom, addressing a press conference following the Western Regional Minister’s creation of the investigative committee, said that besides Assorko being the owners of the Kobina-Andokrom area, Assorko also suffered some impact from the explosion, but both the Shama District and the Regional Minister have ignored the community and even gone ahead to disrespectfully create a committee without Assorko.
While questioning how a committee could be established to investigate an incident on their own land without being members of the committee, the Assorko Chief inquired how the committee could finish their investigation without speaking to the landowners.
“Another indication that clearly manifests the intent of ignoring the people of Assorko as part of the affected people is the formation of a nine-member committee to probe the cause of the explosion. We believe that as owners and users of the land on which the explosion occurred, we should inevitably be part of or represented on the committee.”
“Our question to the authorities who set up the committee and the members of the committee is: Do they have the intent to contact us for information as part of their work? And if I may ask them, ‘Do they have any justification that we will cooperate after we have been treated as foreigners or invisible in the spiritual realm?’ We are indeed peeved and disappointed. We also feel ashamed for being disregarded and disrespected on our own lands and in our own backyard,” he stated.
Source: citinewsroom.com