DWOMOH v. OBUASI URBAN COUNCIL

JUDGMENT OF APALOO J.

By a home-made writ, the plaintiff claims what I paraphrase to be damages for trespass and an order upon the defendant-council to make a re-allocation of two building plots described as No. 9 Kwabrafoso and 101 Tutuka Obuasi to himself.

[p.135]

The evidence shows that the Obuasi land is owned by the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. The defendant-council which was said to have been established in 1952, administers the land as agent for the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation Ltd. In the course of this duty, the council allocates building plots to applicants, collects rents and pays a proportion of the land revenue to the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation Ltd.

In 1949, the plaintiff who normally resides at his home at Mampong, bought from one Kwadwo Fordjuor a building known as house No. 301 Nsuta, Obuasi. It was a swish building. It does not seem to have been in particularly good condition and as early as 1950, the plaintiff wrote to the Obuasi Sanitary Board seeking permission to make repairs on it (exhibit 3). No such permission seems to have been given and the reason seems to have been that the council required that plot for development work. Accordingly, the defendant was paid compensation by the council and also allocated two plots. They are the plots in dispute.

The plaintiff says as soon as he was allocated the plots, he erected two swish buildings on them—one on each. He says the buildings had each reached roof level when he paid one of his periodic visits from Mampong to the site. At that stage, one of the two builders whom he had engaged, had died and the other abandoned the work. On account of this the site had grown weedy and the plaintiff says he got his sister, a Madam Akua Mainu, to weed the walls. He then returned to Mampong. Sometime after this, the plaintiff did not say exactly when, his self-same sister came to him at Obuasi and informed him that the council had demolished his buildings and also claimed to have allocated his plot to someone else.

The defendant-council for its part says that the said plots were allocated to the plaintiff in 1957 on condition that he erected a building on them within a period of twelve months. It says no such buildings were erected by 1956. Accordingly, in November that year by local broadcast announcements, by a notice in the Ashanti Times and notices placed on the said plots, the council made known to the plaintiff its intention to re-enter the plots and that the council did so re-ent