Court orders Empire Cement Limited to cease operations till further notice.

An Accra High Court on Tuesday ordered the Empire Cement Ghana Limited to 

cease all its activities in connection with the construction of a cement factory at the Southern part of the 

McCarthy Hills and its environs.

The court said until the hearing of an injunction application by the McCarthy Hill Residents Association, all 

operations in connection with the construction must cease.

The Court Presided over by Justice Joseph Adu Owusu Agyeman told Lawyers for the company that since 

they had been served with the application it would be fair to confine themselves to due process.

He said until the final determination of the pending application all activities in connection to the application 

must cease immediately.

An application to join the suit filed by a group claiming to be from Tetegu, a community around the 

McCarthy Hill area was withdrawn by them, due to what they described as certain anomalies in their 

application to join.

They, therefore, opted to file another application to join the suit of which the court took cost against them.

The McCarthy Hill Residents Association earlier this year raised red flags when they heard that construction 

taking place in the Southern part of the area was the construction of a Cement factory.

Based on its implications on the environment and the health of the people living in and around the catchment 

area, they confronted the people behind the construction of the factory.

They then went ahead to issue a writ against the company seeking an order to restrain the company from 

going ahead with the construction of the factory.

In their statement of claim, the association said that the factory was being constructed by the company on 

the blind side of the law and that they had disobeyed various EPA orders asking them to desist from going 

ahead with the construction and also a direct order to the company to decommission the equipment it had 

mounted at the factory site.

The company had earlier misled the EPA into issuing a temporary permit to them to manufacture hundred 

metric tons of cement bags per month, however, upon obtaining this permit the company went ahead to put 

in place machinery to manufacture cement as evidence in their articles of incorporation.

It was based on this realization that the association decided to go to court.

The McCarthy Hill Residents Association was represented by Lawyers, Anthony Forson Junior and 

Stephen Sah whilst the Company was represented by Paul U. Dery

Source: DawuroRadio