Scrap dealers clash with national security over alleged GHC 330,000 railway sale at Takoradi port

National Security operatives have reportedly stopped a group of scrap dealers from dismantling railway materials at the Takoradi Port in the Western Region.

The dealers, working in groups of ten, were found cutting large quantities of metal, including railway wagons and rails, at an old railway shed within the port.

One of them, identified as Alhaji Razak, confronted the operatives, insisting that their work was legitimate and approved by a committee made up of political figures from the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis and Effia Kwesimintsim Municipality. According to him, the committee had sold the scrap deal to them at GH¢330,000 per 100 tons of metal.

“They told us that the Railway Company was going to auction some of their items at the port and that if we paid that amount, we would be allowed to take them,” Razak said, adding that they had already made payments to the group in charge.

He claimed to have paid the money to one Chairman Seidu, described as an NDC constituency chairman in Effia, and accused the National Security operatives of blocking their work on grounds that the Transport Ministry had not yet received payment from the purported sale.

Razak, who believes the committee misled them, is demanding a refund of the GH¢330,000 he and his group paid. “We just want our money back,” he said, revealing plans to petition the Western Regional Chairman of the NDC and other senior party figures for intervention.