Assessment of the resettlement compensation satisfaction of wood workers at Sokoban, Kumasi

Abstract

Resettlement has been one of the strategies used to pave way for development and redevelopment of infrastructure in major cities of Ghana in the past few decades. Resettlement is usually characterized by displacement of people and their livelihoods. In Kumasi, resettlement has physicallydisplaced over 10,000 people mostly traders, in and around the Central Business District. Kumasi has undergone significant development in the past two decades in the areas of road and housing construction, resulting in the resettlement of some commercial neighborhoods including the wood merchants from Anloga to allow for the construction of the south-eastern section of the ring road from Oforikrom (Anloga) to Nhyiaeso. This study assessed the outcome of involuntary resettlement of wood merchants from Anloga to Sokoban Wood Village in terms of compensation, improvement in working space and the impact on the timber trade. The study used mixedmethods: it relied on the administration of questionnaires and interviews to gather data from respondents for analysis as well as the use of dependent sample T-test for hypothesis testing to evaluate the change in livelihood that resulted from the resettlement programme. The study revealeda significant improvement in the livelihood of the displaced workers after the resettlement.Keywords: Resettlement, Infrastructure, Compensation, Satisfaction, Livelihoods