Armed police officers and a court registrar, on Wednesday dawn, stormed the home of popular high-life musician, Rex Omar, to seize his properties with the intention of auctioning them.
Rex Omar personally helped the police to move out his room items including coffee tables, TV stand, two pieces of 21-inches plasma television sets, a home theatre set, and his old Renault Cleo salon car registered three years ago.
The operation was on the orders of the Tema Circuit Court ‘B’, following Rex Omar’s inability to cough out an amount of €8000 given to him by his brother-in- law, Haruna Al-Rashid Idris, to secure land for the construction of a salt mining project.
The seized assets, when sold are not likely to amount to € 8000, and the house in which Rex stays cannot be auctioned because it is a rented property.
Haruna is therefore reported to be searching for other properties of Rex across the country so he gets the court to confiscate them for auctioning.
Rex Omar declined speaking to this paper over the matter when he was con¬tacted.
According to a statement of defence, Haruna invited Rex to Germany for a business discussion between them on one side and two Germans partners who proposed the setting up of a Compact Disk (CD) Plant at Accra.
Rex was said to have advised Haruna and his German partners that the cost of establishing the CD plant, which was estimated over one million Euros plus, was too high in relation to its viability, recoverability and profitability. He was said to have explained further that the Ghana music market was an unpredictable one with a very loose copyright regime.
Rex reportedly suggested that if Haruna and his business partners were still poised in setting up a capital venture in Ghana, they should rather consider investing in salt mining.
Haruna and his partners consequently expressed interest in the salt business and proposed that they jointly set up a salt mining company in Ghana.
Rex returned to Ghana and within two months, claimed to have conducted feasibility studies for the project to take off.
According to the statement, Rex was able to secure a 504-acre land at a cost of GHC 3million per acre at Winneba for the salt project using his public image, reputation and good will among others in Ghana. He was said to have then signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a lease of the 504-acre land with the concerned chiefs.
Haruna, whiles in Germany where he is domiciled, was said to have given Rex Omar an amount of €8000 to pay for the leasing of the land and other expenses for the project.
But when Haruna later returned to Ghana for the construction project to commence, he realized the land was not secured and further checks with the concerned chiefs revealed that no such consultations were made.
After fruitless attempts to retrieve the money from his brother-in-law, Haruna reported the matter to the Tema Police where Rex was apprehended.
The case was sent to Tema Circuit Court B presided over by His Honour Emmanuel Bart-Plange Brew, where judgment was entered in favour of Haruna in June 2008.
Rex promised to pay the amount in four instalments but failed to honour his promise, thus, pushing his brother-in-law to secure writ of execution and forfeiture to auction and sell his properties to defray his money.
-Newsone