Date: Nov 25 , 2019 BY: Benjamin Xornam Glover
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| Mr Samuel Ayeh (left) a farmer, briefing the team from ACEP and OXFAM on some of the challenges facing the farmers with the current state of the dam |
Farmers benefitting from the Dawa Irrigation Dam in the
Ningo Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region have appealed to the
government to, as a matter of urgency, reinforce the retaining walls of the
facility to save it from breaking.
The farmers who spoke to the Daily Graphic last Friday, said
the dam which was rehabilitated and handed over some three to four years ago
was not strong enough following the gradual erosion of the embankments.
They said the dam’s walls had become narrow and had
developed some huge cracks, which if not remedied could culminate in the
flooding of nearby farms and cause disruption of socio-economic activities in
the area.
Rehabilitation
The Dawa Dam is a project funded from Ghana ’s oil
revenue. The farmers spoke of the precarious nature of the dam during a field
trip conducted by Oxfam as part of its Extractive Industry Governance
programme.
Being implemented in partnership with the Africa Centre for Energy
Policy (ACEP), the trip was to track the impact of projects funded with petroleum
revenues and to ascertain how maintenance was factored in the project
implementation process as well as how the project had been of benefit to the
community.
Mr Samuel Ayeh, a farmer, said the dam was very useful to
the community because it was the main source of water for their farming
activities, but now the dam wall was very weak and they feared it might break
if not reinforced.
Mr Ayeh, the immediate past assembly member for the Dawa
Electoral Area, said the dam wall had become too narrow and weak with erosion
setting in very fast, and that they feared that if maintenance works were not
carried out to reinforce the structure, it might collapse.
He said in 2012 the dam malfunctioned when parts of its wall
collapsed but after several appeals by the community, the government awarded it
to a contractor for the reconstruction of the dam’s walls.
He, however, noted that after three to four years, erosion
had set in and exposed the dam to danger, adding that if the damage was not
repaired, a number of farmers would be rendered jobless.
Quality delivery
The Executive Director of ACEP, Mr Benjamin Boakye, said it
was expected that the rehabilitated dam would last for 50 years, however, it
was unfortunate that three to four years down the lane, some damages had been
witnessed on the structure.
He explained that the situation could be as a result of poor
supervision, and stressed the need for officials to demand quality delivery of
projects.
“We need dams like this to serve the purpose for which they
were constructed over a longer period of time but it doesn’t look like we are
getting that value for money with dams of this nature because of the quality of
the delivery.
"The media and civil society organisations have the
duty to monitor the efficiency of projects such as this to ensure that
contractors deliver the quality expected of them for projects that can meet the
purpose for which they were constructed,” he said.
According to him, although systems existed to ensure that
projects were delivered to specification, engineers and contractors were not
being efficient at monitoring to ensure that the quality met approved standards
to sustain the projects.
He proposed that perhaps CSOs and individuals must begin to
sue engineers and contractors to send a signal to them that they could not
continue to deliver poor quality jobs and get paid.
Transparency
The Vice-President of Oxfam America, Ms Fatema Z. Sumer,
said it was important that farmers’ voices were heard by the government to make
sure the money from oil revenue was being spent well.
She said the role that ACEP was playing was important to
ensure that the government was accountable and transparent.
