Several residents of Kasoa, located in the Central region, express frustration over the constant association of their community with various societal problems, even when such incidents occur in neighboring or distant areas.
Their primary desire is to see an end to this labeling and for crimes to be accurately attributed to their actual locations, rather than indiscriminately linking them to Kasoa. This practice hampers local businesses.
Kasoa, serving as the capital of the densely populated Awutu Senya East Municipality, boasts a vibrant foodstuff market and is situated on the outskirts of Accra West. Despite its proximity to the national capital, it falls within the Central region geographically.
Similar to many other large communities across the nation, Kasoa grapples with a disproportionate share of societal issues such as land disputes, ritual killings, armed robberies, and petty crimes.
Apart from serving as a venue for political rallies and campaigns, drawing significant attention from Ghana’s major political parties, media mentions of Kasoa tend to focus on criminal activities or negative occurrences.
They highlight the case of Monday afternoon’s fatal shooting of a soldier during a land dispute as evidence. This incident occurred in Millennium City, situated within the Gomoa East District. Despite this, all media coverage and official statements from both the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Armed Forces refer to Kasoa as the site of the crime.
“We are extremely unhappy with the seeming deliberate effort to attribute any wrongdoing to Kasoa by recognized media outfits and state institutions,” says a statement they issued on May Day.
“(More) often than not the name Kasoa has been mentioned in publications regarding criminal and other bad happenings even when those cases did not happen within the Kasoa municipality.
“We have become more alarmed as the police in a statement issued on the shooting of a military personnel expressly mentioned the location to be Kasoa even though the incident happened right at the District Police Command in Millennium City which categorically falls under Gomoa East District.
“We are disturbed that a state security agency like the police could not define the jurisdiction accurately. It must be noted that the Millennium City where the shooting took place is natively known as Gomoa Bantama and falls directly under Gomoa Fetteh in the Gomoa East District of the Central Region while Kasoa falls within the Awutu Senya East Municipality.
“In a similar incident an alleged missing manhood case which happened at Nyanyano Kakraba also in the Gomoa East was widely reported as happening in Kasoa.
“As residents, we do not find it tasteful the bad name tag being associated with Kasoa as it is blocking our business potentials.
“We are therefore entreating all Ghanaians particularly media organizations and state agencies to do due diligence and avoid mentioning Kasoa other than the specific locations where crimes are perpetrated.
“However, we commend the police for acting swiftly to arrest the perpetrator of this dastardly murder and urge the outfit to investigate further to arrest other accomplices if any, and to also work more efficiently to curb these violent land disputes which have become a menace. Thank You.”