Ghana's McDan rejects GACL "buyer beware" notice as 16-acre Spintex land dispute heads to Court of Appeal

Daniel McKorley's McDan Group has rejected a public warning issued by Ghana Airports Company Limited cautioning buyers against acquiring or developing a contested 16-acre parcel on Accra's Spintex Road, escalating one of the country's most closely watched corporate land disputes.

GACL released the notice on May 19, 2026, urging the public to stay away from the property, which it says remains under active litigation between the state-owned operator and McDan subsidiaries Airport Logistics Limited and McDan Shipping Company Limited. The notice followed reports that entities linked to the Tema-based logistics conglomerate had been marketing the parcels for sale or development.

McDan responded the same day, framing GACL's announcement as premature and prejudicial while an appeal sits before the Court of Appeal. The McDan position rests on a May 6, 2025 Accra High Court Land Division judgment that granted GACL re-entry and possession rights over the parcels, a ruling the McDan Group has formally challenged.

The dispute has roots stretching back almost a decade. GACL says the land forms part of the buffer corridor around Kotoka International Airport and that McDan subsidiaries took a lease on terms they failed to honor. McDan maintains it executed the relevant agreements properly and that the airport authority's enforcement actions have been disproportionate.

The Spintex standoff sits alongside a separate but related row at Kotoka itself. GACL terminated McDan Aviation's fixed-base operator license at Terminal 1 in March 2026, then sent officers in a midnight operation that the airline says breached a subsisting court injunction. McKorley has since called the wider sequence "coordinated economic targeting" and rallied community groups, with the Coalition of Zongo Youth in Ashanti Region petitioning President John Dramani Mahama in April to protect McDan's operations.

Beyond the immediate land row, the dispute carries political weight. McKorley sits among Ghana's most prominent indigenous entrepreneurs and built McDan from a single shipping business in 1999 into a conglomerate spanning logistics, aviation, oil and gas services, real estate and salt mining. Industry watchers say the Spintex outcome will set a precedent for how state-owned enterprises enforce land rights against politically connected private operators heading into the 2028 election cycle.

GACL says it will pursue the appeal and any related criminal complaints. McDan says it will continue to defend its title through the courts.