How Rawlings asked Ahwoi to “pull down” a hotel but refused – Kweku Baako

• Posted on August 14, 2020August 14, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Prof Kwamena Ahwoi says he was pressured into ordering the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to pull down the Pier Hotel in the Airport area of Accra.

The hotel owned by Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim was pulled down by the military on April 12, 1999.

Years down the line, Prof Kwamena Ahwoi in his controversial book “Working With Rawlings” disclosed that, “President Rawlings had called me and asked me to order the AMA to pull down the hotel. I told him it was inadvisable to pull down the hotel but that I would get the AMA to get the owner to do something about the drainage to avert the feared flooding during the heavy rains. I woke up one morning to the news that the military had demolished the hotel. I had no evidence that the demolition was on the orders of President Rawlings, but given the antecedents of the demolition, I had my suspicions . . .” 

This subsequently turned into a judgement debt which was paid under the Mills administration according to Kweku Baako who was contributing to a panel discussion on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’.

The renowned Journalist also corroborated Prof Ahwoi’s account that there was intense pressure on him to award a waste management contract to Eddie Annan; cited on Pages 136 and 137 of the book.

Listen to him in the video below

-Peacefm