Posted: The Chronicle | Thursday, 6 August 2009
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly has instituted criminal proceedings against some staff of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), including medical doctors and their relations, numbering over fifty.
The action follows complaints by the management of the hospital, to the AMA about non-compliance with notices to relocate unauthorised structures illegally placed in the premises of the hospital.
The affected persons include Dr. Samuel Odartey Lamptey, Dr. Avoglo, Dorothy Asare, Margaret Hammond, Faustina Asantwaa, Samuel Ofori, and a host of others.
The accused persons have thus been charged for failing to comply with abatement notices served on them on October 29, 2008, which required them to relocate structures which they had placed on the property of the hospital, without seeking permits.
Presenting a brief fact of the case, the prosecutor, Inspector Peaceton Commodore, noted that the accused persons were vendors, who of their own volition, placed a number of unauthorised structures in both the clinical and residential areas of the hospital, to the detriment and annoyance of the hospital's management, and the public as a whole.
The prosecutor indicated that following persistent complaints by Professor Nii Otu-Nartey, Chief Administrator of the hospital, environmental officers inspected the premises, and found that the accused persons had in a 'reckless manner' placed a number of unauthorised structures on the hospital premises.
After the inspection, the AMA concluded that the activities and operations of the accused persons posed serious sanitation and security problems in the area, emphasising, "the officers learnt that all efforts to bring sanity in the area proved futile, because of the recalcitrant nature of the accused persons."
As a result, the accused were issued with abatement notices, asking them to relocate their unauthorised structures from the place within three months, however, they all failed to comply with the notices.
This is what compelled the authorities of the AMA to institute legal action against the affected people.
However, counsel for the staff and their relations, who are affected by the action, Agyei- Kodee Nuamah of AKN & Associates, sought to strike out the case against their clients, raising a preliminary legal objection in court over the charges brought against the affected persons.
He could not fathom why criminal charges had been brought against his clients, since according to him, as a corporate institution, Korle-Bu could sue and equally be sued, hence making the case a civil one, and not a criminal matter as it stands currently.
That notwithstanding, counsel noted that it was the management of Korle-Bu which legalised the activities and operations of his clients, since they initially issued them with operational licences, thus making his clients licensed operators within the confines of the hospital.
Counsel thus pleaded with the court to give his clients a fair hearing before they are convicted, as stated in 19 (1) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, stressing that the prosecution's request for their eviction, constitutes an illegality.
Lawyer Nuamah therefore prayed the court to consider the plight of his clients, considering the untold hardships which they and their dependants and employees would go through, if evicted from their current places of work.
Counsel also denied claims that the activities and operations of his clients constitute a nuisance to the public, noting that the activities of his clients render essential services to the hospital, its staff, and members of the public.
He therefore saw nothing wrong with their operations, since as law abiding citizens, his clients had been keeping their individual places of work clean without posing any form of environmental hazard as alleged.
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In spite of this, counsel further claimed that Korle-Bu and its management were using what he described as 'discriminatory tendencies' to evict his clients, stressing that whilst the hospital is asking some businesses, including his clients, to vacate the premises, it was also giving space and allocations to others, including new ones such as the Legacy Gift Shop and the Odo Rice Food joint to operate.
He therefore requested the court to consider the plight of his clients and their dependants, in order to safeguard their security, since it could have serious consequential effects on their lives in these times of economic hardship.
The Adjabeng District Magistrate Court will on August 10, this year, determine whether or not to grant the counsel's preliminary objection.