FREDERICK MENSAH v. DIRECTOR NEWMONT & ANOTHER
2012
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- A.ASARE-KORANG, J.A (PRESIDING)
- V.OFOE, J.A.
- C.J.HONYENUGA, J.A
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Administrative Law
- Constitutional Law
2012
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Writing for the Court of Appeal, Victor D. Ofoe, J.A. addressed a compensation dispute between a farmer from Adausena, New Abirem District, and a mining company operating under a government lease. After an enumeration by the farmer, the chief farmer, company officials and the Land Valuation Board, exhibit A recorded crops including 5,000 nursery seedlings. The Nkawkaw High Court ordered compensation for all crops and rejected the company’s acreage method, but on appeal the court concluded exhibit A was not a valuation report. It emphasized that compensation under the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) and Article 20(2)(a) must be determined by agreement, typically via the Compensation Negotiation Committee (CNC), which binds beneficiaries. Evidence showed CNC rules applied acreage‑based seedling compensation and a standard of 60 seedlings per acre; the farmer had only 5.1 acres. The Court of Appeal set aside the High Court’s order and directed compensation only for seedlings that could be planted on the available acreage, with transport assistance for the remainder. Judges A. Asare‑Korang, J.A. (Presiding) and C.J. Honyenuga, J.A. concurred.
J U D G M E N T
OFOE, J.A.:
The defendant acquired a mining lease from the government of Ghana in Adausena in the New Abirem District of the Eastern Region. By law it is obliged to pay compensation to persons, including farmers, who found themselves on the acquisition area and were to be displaced. The plaintiff, a farmer, happens to be one of these persons. It is the accepted practice that the farmer affected, in this case the plaintiff, the chief farmer of the area, officials of the defendant company and an officer of the Land Valuation Board approves of the type and quantities of the crops found on the affected farmers land. What was found on plaintiff’s land and signed by these personalities was tendered as exhibit A. The dispute between the plaintiff and the defendant in the trial court and indeed in this court is in respect of some 5000 nursery seedlings which plaintiff claims he is entitled to be compensated for. The defendant does not intend paying the plaintiff this demand because it is its case that there is an accepted mode of payment for seedlings which is not what the plaintiff is demanding. The defendant contends that the payment is on acreage basis. The matter had to go to the Nkawkaw High Court for determination.
By his writ of summons, which was home brewed i.e. issued by the plaintiff personally, he asked for an order from the court directed at the defendant to pay compensation to him as per the valuation report of his farm.
Defendants’ case on the pleadings is that it is true that they found 5000 seedlings and other crops belonging to the plaintiff on the land. These were duly recorded and that is what is recorded in exhibit A. They were to facilitate the movement of the seedlings to any place of choice for the plaintiff but he refused insisting he was entitled to be paid compensation for these 5000 seedlings which are not crops planted on the land.
The trial court agreed and gave him judgment directing the defendant to pay the plaintiff compensation for all crops including the 5000 seedlings, rejecting the acreage mode of payment offered by the defendant.
The trial judges reasoning for this conclusion can be noted under two heads. Firstly that it was not right for the second defendant to object to the planting of 5000 seedlings on the plaintiff’s 5 acre piece of land on the grounds that the seedlings were too many to occupy that size of land. Such objection the trial judge found unreasonable because it was the view of the trial co