The Labadi shoreline demolitions: Who owns the beach?

At dawn of 2nd October 2026, there was a heavy deployment of excavators rudely awakening slumbering squatters, tearing down walls, kiosks, bars, and concrete extensions along the stretch of coast that hosts Labadi Pleasure Beach Resort and La Palm Royal Beach Hotel. For business owners, small vendors and tourists, it looked like destruction of investment, livelihood and leisure opportunity. For the adjoining SSNIT-owned resorts, it was years of trespassing on their littoral rights, grave nuisance, and obstruction of the visual amenity of the oceanfront. For the state, it was enforcement of growing flagrant encroachment and code violations and the need for a reset of law and order. It, however, raises a fundamental question that Ghana has avoided for decades: Who owns the shoreline?