Mankrong Nkwanta residents pay heavy price as demolitions clear way for 24-hour market
A community in the Central Region is in turmoil after bulldozers moved in to flatten homes and displace hundreds of people, as the government presses ahead with plans to erect a 24-Hour Economy Market on land residents say they have long called home.
The demolition exercise, underway in Mankrong Nkwanta in the Agona East District, has left families scrambling for shelter after several structures were reduced to rubble.
Community leaders had previously urged authorities to identify an unoccupied plot for the project rather than uproot an established settlement, but those appeals appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
District Assembly officials have defended the move, citing historical records that purportedly show the land functioned as a market long before colonial times.
Few stories capture the human cost of the exercise as starkly as that of Comfort Quansah, a 66-year-old woman who is bedridden and now has no roof over her head.
She recounted being summoned to a community meeting where she was told she was occupying government land and would have to leave.
When the assemblyman offered to help secure her a rental unit, the catch was that she would bear the cost herself — a condition she rejected. The demolitions came shortly after.
“My brother gave me this space but it has no bathroom and toilet facility. I took my bath in the open last night and had to crawl back to the room.
The government has not provided any alternative neither have we received any compensation,” she said.
Displaced property owners have directed their frustration at the assemblyman for the Mankrong Junction Electoral Area, Abraham Inkoom, accusing him of stringing them along with false assurances.
Their anger deepened after it emerged that compensation valuation forms he had distributed to affected households were later disowned by the District Chief Executive, who reportedly indicated the forms carried no official weight and that Inkoom had not been formally tasked with leading the project.
For one resident who had sunk his entire savings into building his home, the betrayal cuts deep.
He told Citi News that after being briefed about the upcoming market development and handed the valuation forms, he trusted the process — only to discover the paperwork meant nothing.
Residents are now appealing directly to the central government to step in, fearing that without outside intervention, they will be left with neither homes nor compensation.
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