Former northern director for the Ghana Meteorological Agency has expressed worries over the abandoned Pwalugu multipurpose dam.
According to Mr. Dominic Soami Pokperlaar, the interest of the politician is to gather votes and gain political power. For him, politicians usually fail to consider the plight of the people who gave them power.
Speaking at a local media training and stakeholders engagement event in Tamale, the former director tasked the media to keep drumming home the voices of the people till the constructions of the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam is reallized.
“Our governments are interested in people voting for them, but they don’t care whether the people voting are suffering or not. You(the media) will have to hold government accountable.
Any political party, any presidential candidate that comes up here tell them ,the most important thing they need to do to solve our problems is look into the construction of the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam.
If the media personnel and everybody is singing about it, I believe the politicians will hear it, other than the Ghana Meteorological Agency, will come and give you all the fantastic theories that they have, Hydrological Authority will come and give you all the fantastic theories that they have gotten from their research, nothing will happen and we always come up here, hold seminars and tell you this is what is happening and politicians are not prepared to solve it so I challenge the media personnel to keep singing about the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam , let’s us build it to take all other water from Burkina Faso”.
He called on the media to place a priority on the construction of the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam.
The construction of the dam, he asserted will address the challenges of prolong drought and the perennial floods from the Volta Basin as well as food shortage in the Northern part of Ghana.
He indicated that when the dream of the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam is reallized through the efforts of the media, then people of Northern Ghana can applause the media.
Burkina Faso occupies 42% of the Volta Basin whiles Ghana occupied 40% of the Volta Basin in the country.
He also lamented how the office for the project site is located at Tema Community 6. This he noted makes it difficult for people to access information about the status of the Pwalungu Multipurpose dam.
Meanwhile the four year period for the construction of the project has elapsed, with no sign of work ongoing.
The infrastructure development project was budgeted at US$993 million. The Parliament of Ghana approved the budget in March 2020. The procurement, engineering and construction contract was awarded to Power China International.
However, other credible sources have reported the EPC contractor to Sinohydro.
Source:mywordfmonline.com/Gaspard Ayuureneeya