BY Emeritus Prof Dinkum💃 Alex Kyeremeh:
I have appraised the entire parliamentary screen of Okudzeto Ablakwa before his eventual nomination as the Minister for foreign affairs for a nimiety of times, where he was bared harrowingly. At the outset, i didn’t intend to give an audit about his mishmash of obloquy he pitched upon, but since, he has unscrupulously bracketed himself martyr and puritan, so, in effect, i want to asseverate to the populace about why Okudzeto Ablakwa is the ‘ shrouded Shaitan ‘ with his own exertions during the vetting.
I won’t bank on the tenuous cant he made against Nana Akufo Addo’s daughter, of having purchased a state lands _ likewise, i won’t recourse to the paranoid pretext of Hon. Alexander Afenyo, of having secured a state land through governmental tenure, while it became lucid in the wake of it that, Okudzeto Ablakwa intrigued with some people in the framing of that plastic document also. It is cranky, Okudzeto Ablakwa surmises that, Ghanaians are ripe for the picking and that, he could foist on us with his hoaxes. By the time, Hon. Afenyo had procured the land, he had not been in government, so what stung Okudzeto Ablakwa to trump up such immoderate squawk? In accordance with the State Lands Act, 1962 (5), it articulates that, “the President may grant a lease or licence in respect of any land acquired under this Act”.
This connotes that, for every ‘ lease ‘ of a land, the government (president) must be the kingpin to lubricate the attainment of any leaseholds; bereft of the seal of the president, will be a quixotic exercise. To buttress this impregnable assertion, the Land Act 2020, Act 1036, demystifies the technical and legal structures of any lease lands in Ghana and thus, the government (president) plays a catalytic role in it. Although, all and sundry are inclined to acquiring lands based on lease, but the regulatory aspects are rigorously stringent and hermetically robust to the angle that, it fetters hundreds of individuals in its acquisition, which is why, the 1992 Constitution shepherds it staunchly, whereas the sinews of it is inscribed in Article 20(1) of the Constitution. However, the bottom line here, using the datum above is that, land leases are under the fiat of the government, therefore, terming Hon. Afenyo’s land as an item of lease was a sheer discrepancy and hunch.
My incubus in this regard is how Okudzeto Ablakwa wangled with Finali limited in fiddling of documents to corroborate his rental bills at Airport Hills, after he was been supplicated by the Minority leader to emanate a xerox of it. I don’t want to jaw on the fact that, the tenancy agreement was older than the land title and a couple of vacillating, tentative and perfidious inscriptions in that tenancy agreement. To smoke out any obfuscation at the moment, there are two main types of tenancy agreements in Ghana. These are the written-based lease and the verbal agreement. By apparency and saliency, Okudzeto Ablakwa cherry – picked the ‘ written – based lease ‘ which is why, he submitted it to the Appointment Committee.
With this kind of lease, it is a formal agreement, which contains clauses for both the tenant and the landlord being subscribed to. There are four core clauses which account for such lease;
- I) The Lease Clause, which is a clause in which both parties consent to the terms of the contract.
- II) The Rent Clause, which underscores how much rent will be paid on a monthly basis.
III) The Tenancy Period, which is how long you have acceded to live there once you’ve signed the contract.
- IV) The Renewal Clause, which declares whether or not your agreement will continue with each year (if it is renewed).
Amongst these four thematic sectors, the anticipation of everybody was the monthly rental amount being defrayed by the self – centered priggish man, but palpably, he couldn’t activate it, due to the astronomical nature of it. Because, it has been enshrined in the Rent Control Law 1986 (PNDCL 138) that, the monthly rent payable by a tenant must not be in obscurity. Even though, there have been underscored exemptions and which includes;
1) Held by Government or other State agency;
2) Of premises let for industrial, commercial or other business purposes;
3) Of premises rented by diplomatic or consular missions, international organisations, foreign companies and firms which under section 1 of the Rent (Amendment) (No. 3) Decree, 1979 (A.F.R.C.D. 51) are required to pay the foreign exchange equivalent of their rents to the Bank of Ghana in the first instance;
4) Taken by any incorporated body other than a body the whole proprietary interest in which is held by the Government or other State agency; and (e) where the rent payable exceeds ¢1,000.00 a month.
By these immunities, Okudzeto Ablakwa is still been handicapped by any of them, hence should have professed the volume of money being liquidated monthly, for us to have upped the ante of his sententious comportment.
The blatant slackness of Okudzeto Ablakwa in accomplishing that assignment implies that, he is a meretricious person, who noses around to thrive on schadenfreude for political repute; such person must be mothered and doctored either like a hobo or bête noire!
By: Prof. Dinkum.
(The Buzzing Rapine Of Erudition )
E – mail : dinkumchoice@gmail.com
