Government could have taken advantage of Bagre Dam spillage instead of wasting money on 1V1D – Engineer
The annual Bagre Dam spillage in some parts of Northern Ghana has been labelled as a contributory factor to why the government has not been very successful in its One Village One Dam project according to road construction consultant, Ing Abdulai Mahama.
He could not fathom why the government could not rather take advantage of this spillage to commence some irrigation project to benefit the farmers after studying the pattern of the spillage for fifteen years.
“Not long ago, Burkina Faso was experiencing serious droughts and when they planned and constructed about five dams, they are now even able to produce and export foodstuff to Ghana,” he revealed.
Ing Mahama said the spillage which often causes flooding can be overturned by trapping all the water to serve the purposes of irrigation on the farms in Northern Ghana.
He reiterated the need for such a measure to be adopted since the heavy rains often bring flood but soon after farmers find it difficult to get water for their crops.
Currently, the Bagre dam has been opened by SONABEL, its operators since Thursday, September 1st 2022 and will soon get downstream, affecting most community settlements and farms along the White and Black Volta.
Since the construction of this dam, this has been the situation in some parts of Northern Ghana for 15 years.
The National Disaster Management Organization as a precautionary measure warns residents along the risk areas to move to high lands to be safe.
Ing Abdulai Mahama questioned the relevance of the One Village One Dam project saying if it was carefully created the dams numbering about 1,500 could easily incept the water to rather help the people within the community.
He added “It is a total failure and unfortunately it has come back to hurt us. We are not monitoring and evaluating projects to surcharge or prosecute people who do not do the jobs according to specifications”.
Mr Mahama then admonished the government not to be secretive about the projects but bring out the required information and get the tried and tested experts on board to bring out an appropriate solution on how to address the situation and called for the punitive measure on those who constructed the shallow dams under the One Village One dam project.
