The Ghana Boundary Commission is set to meet officials of Burkina Faso to deliberate on measures to end the encroachment on the borders of the two countries.
According to the Commissioner General of the Ghana Boundary Commission, Major General Emmanuel Kotia, commercial activities and private developers were encroaching on the buffer zone and the international boundary line.
This, he explained, poses a threat to the environment and security.
Speaking to JoyNews on April 5, he stated that the commission is considering the possibility of erecting a fence spanning about four kilometres or more along the boundary line at Paga to tackle this problem.
“We have built-up areas surrounding the boundary pillars, which is against international law, so this is very fundamental, and we need to see how best we can resolve it. As a result, we invited our Burkinabe counterpart to come, and we would have a firsthand observation. We would walk through and see practically what is happening, and we would be able to see how we would litigate that problem.”
Commenting on the encroachment, the outgoing Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu, explained that the encroachment of the international boundary line and buffer zones is not isolated to Paga but in other places in other parts of the region.
He stressed that about a year ago, the government resolved an encroachment issue in Pusiga.
“For example, in Bawku West, in fact, some of the buildings have buildings that are half in Burkina Faso and half in Ghana, and then we have Kulungugu, a similar thing there, and we also have Pusiga.
“The boundary commission, after here, needs to look at this area that I have mentioned so that together with Burkina Faso, we realign things and make sure that we do not get to where we are again,” he said.
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