I will demolish your hotel if the opportunity arose – Rawlings to the chairman of the Dara Salam group

General News on Tuesday, June 4th, 2019

Source: clbadfmonline.com

2019-06-04

Former President Jerry John Rawlings said he was not sorry to have demolished a $ 5 million hotel owned by an entrepreneur and executive chairman of the Dara Salaam group, Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim, there has several decades.

Mr. Rawlings stated that the property had been built on a waterway and that, if the opportunity arose, he would remove even other structures in addition to the hotel that he had demolished at the time.

"However, grown-ups seem to be above the law and untouchable. If time allowed, I would do it again and again and I will take with them their new gargantuan structures into the waterways, "Rawlings said in a speech on Tuesday to mark the uprising of the 4th. June 1979.

Alhaji Ibrahim said he had long been forgiving former President Rawlings, under whose administration his hotel had been demolished.

Speaking publicly about this problem for the first time in nearly 20 years in an interview with Good Evening Ghana at the launch of his autobiography, the business magnate said he had forgiven Mr. Rawlings for his wrongs.

"I'm not mad at Rawlings, I'm never angry at anyone, I know that everything that happens to me is God-determined, or God says it's going to happen, so I have nothing against Rawlings I have no choice but to forgive him, the Qur'an says that we should forgive and forget, "he said.

On Monday, April 12, 1999, while he was walking early in the morning, Alhaji Ibrahim recounted that he had received alarming news that his ultramodern, almost completed, hotel was equipped with air conditioners, televisions, refrigerators, between other valuables. shaved by military on the basis of suspicion that he was in bed with Sir Sam Jonah, considered an "enemy of the state" at the time.

Alhaji Ibrahim then took the case to court and subsequently was awarded a judgment debt of GHS 1.13 million which was paid by the administration of Prof. J. E. A. Mills in 2009.

Addressing his supporters on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, Mr. Rawlings said that Alhaji Ibrahim "is not able to forgive anyone or anything, not even the bush rat in his hometown. God has nothing to do with illegal structures; it had nothing to do with the application of the law. Governments do not seem to be restrained when it comes to demolishing the structures of the poor in waterways or in unauthorized areas. "

He continued, "Incidentally, your respectable law-abiding structures have reported, which recognized the potential danger that the building could cause. And to say that I am accused of ordering the demolition because I had a bone to choose with your Sam Jonah. Sam Jonah, by the way, is no stranger to having a treacherous and greedy appetite than your small hotel. I am not sure that the misuse of my name will win you all the sympathy. Your financial claims, as well as those granted by the court, have been exaggerated, but that's how your gender mixes business and politics. "