Commentary, News, Opinion

Ghana’s Encroachment Problem: Stop the First Structure

By Pearlvis Atsu Kuadey- Video Journalist

Across Accra and Tema, encroachment often begins with a single structure. Someone places a container beside a road. A kiosk is set up on the pavement. A mechanic or vulcanizer starts operating on the shoulder of the road and the trend continues. By the time authorities intervene, one structure may have grown into a whole line of businesses, making removal far more difficult and costly. Manet Junction on the Spintex Road offers a clear example. In May 2022, the Ledzokuku Municipal Assembly demolished more than 200 unauthorized structures there. The exercise was carried out to make way for road development, and the Assembly warned against rebuilding.

Yet the area has since seen structures and businesses return. This points to a weakness in the way encroachment is often handled. That is why enforcement has to begin much earlier. When the first container is placed in a prohibited area, action should follow.

Recent reports from Avenor and the North Industrial Area describe pavements occupied by bicycles displayed for sale, broken-down vehicles, used tyres, livestock sales and other commercial activities, leaving pedestrians with little choice but to walk alongside moving traffic. There has also been repeated concern around Madina Zongo Junction and along Baba Seidu Road towards the main Madina Market, where traders and unauthorized structures have occupied pavements and parts of the road corridor. The La Nkwantanang-Madina Municipal Assembly has previously carried out decongestion exercises in the area, and yet the problem persists.

This is not an argument against traders or small businesses. For many people, these activities are their livelihoods. But a livelihood does not automatically make an unsuitable location appropriate for business. Public space has a purpose, and commercial activity cannot simply take it over because there is demand for it. The difficulty is that by the time government acts, there is usually a human story attached to every structure.

Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 provides for planning and building inspectors to monitor physical development, while the law also provides for enforcement. So, the real test of enforcement should not be how effectively an assembly demolishes fifty structures.

Assemblies cannot physically monitor every street, pavement and neighborhoods every day. But residents are already there. A simple reporting system could allow people to send a photograph, location and description of a new encroachment, receive a reference number and follow up on the action taken. Rwanda provides one example. Through the Irembo platform, citizens can submit complaints and tip-offs to the Ministry of Local Government, attach photographs or other supporting documents and receive an application number that allows them to track the case. That would not replace inspectors. It would give them more eyes on the ground.

Also, there must be clearer planning for informal businesses. If traders are repeatedly removed from pavements and other public spaces but have nowhere suitable to operate, the cycle will continue. Public authorities need to identify appropriate trading areas and consistently enforce those boundaries.

Citizens, too, have a part to play. We complain when pavements are occupied, but we also buy from roadside traders because it is convenient. We complain about traffic while some drivers park wherever they find space. We object to roadside car workshops but still use them. Public space is therefore a shared responsibility.

Yet government carries the greater institutional responsibility because it makes the rules, approves development and has the legal authority to enforce them. There is also a need for accountability when the same locations repeatedly return to the headlines because of encroachment. The assembly should be able to explain what happened, what monitoring was put in place, and why the structures were allowed to return. That is not about blaming individual officers; it is about ensuring that public institutions take responsibility for the spaces they are mandated to manage.

This is why encroachment should not be treated simply as a demolition problem. It is a planning, monitoring and enforcement problem. Across Ghana, the goal should not be more dramatic demolition exercises to prove that authorities can act. The goal should be systems that make it difficult for illegal development to take root in the first place, namely regular inspection, prompt notices, suitable trading areas, citizen reporting, and consistent enforcement.