Landlord to invoke gods to kill police for non-payment of house rent

A 78-year-old landlord has given the Inspector General of Police (IGP) up to the middle of October 2017 to pay him rent owed by four police officers at Asokore Mampong as ordered by a Kumasi High Court else he would curse the police with all the gods in Ghana.

According to Mr Appiah Danquah, the court ordered the police to move out of the apartment and pay him his rent arrears but they had defied the order of the court.

He explained that if the IGP refused to settle the arrears as requested by the court by October 15, he would invoke all the gods in Ghana, including Antoa, to kill all the police personnel occupying the building and then use their family members as thanks offering to the gods.

That, according to him, would let the police know that he was very serious with the issue of collecting his money.

Mr Danquah, who disclosed this to The Mirror in an exclusive interview in Kumasi said, “Instead of the police being law enforcers, they have rather become the lawbreakers.”

Background

Mr Danquah told The Mirror that in the early part of 2013, the Asokore Mampong Chief, Nana Ansah Debrah, told him he was going to build a police station for the community but had an accommodation challenge for the police.

The chief then asked him to sell his (landlord’s) land which was directly opposite the police station to him but he refused.

He said a few days later, with the assistance of the Asokore Mampong chief who is a professional architect; he drew a plan for a three-storey building with 12 apartments.

Mr Danquah said on several occasions, he met with a team of experts from the Ghana Police Service Estate Unit who, after approval, gave a go-ahead for the commencement of the building.

A few months later, the landlord single-handedly managed to complete the first floor of the building and a tenancy agreement was signed between him and the police administration.

Facts

The rent assessment from the Ghana Police Service dated July 5, 2013, stated: “I am directed by the Director General/Service to inform you that the rental value of your property has been assessed at four hundred and eighty Ghana cedis (GH¢ 480.00) per month with effect from April 1, 2013.” This meant that each police officer occupying any of the four rooms would pay GH¢ 480.00 per month.

According to the landlord, after the police personnel took over the building, for two years they were not paying any rent so he informed the regional office and all other personnel who mattered, all to no avail.

Mr Danquah said he then sought the service of a lawyer who took the matter to the Circuit Court in Kumasi and on October 15, 2015, judgement was given in his favour and the police officers were ordered to move out of the building and also pay him all his rent arrears.

He said after the judgement however, the police still refused to abide by the order and that compelled his lawyer to file an order to garnishee the accounts of the Ashanti Regional Police Command at the Ghana Commercial Bank in Kumasi, which the court granted on March 3, 2017.

A few days after the order, the police quickly went and paid the face value of the rent which led to the garnishee to the tune of GH¢25,692.00 which remained unpaid by then.

As of the time of filing this report, the landlord claimed the officers had refused to move out of the building although the court had ordered them to do so, and had since February this year not paid any rent but continued to live in the apartment against the court’s order.

When The Mirror visited the Ashanti Regional Command last Friday, the Regional Public Relations Officer, Madam Juliana Obeng, initially took copies of the court documents from this reporter to study it so they could react to the issue.

As at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, September 27, 2017, they were still not ready to answer any question concerning the issue.