The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) has intensified efforts calling on the current government to launch a full-scale investigation into the One Village, One Dam (1V1D) initiative under the previous administration.
NORPRA says there is a need for people who handled the initiative to be held accountable for their stewardship as part of efforts to ensure accountability and responsibility.
This campaign, spearheaded by the NGO stems from a study it conducted to track and assess the impact of the project years after it was initiated.
In an exclusive interview with The High Street Journal, the Executive Director of NORPRA, Bismark Ayorogo Adongo, revealed that the study’s findings on the dams are jaw-dropping and mind-blowing.
The One Village One Dam initiative was touted as a pro-poor policy aimed at improving the lives and livelihoods of members of the beneficiary communities. It was designed to improve irrigation for all-year-round farming and increase food production. It was also expected to generate employment in farming and other related activities.
Through the initiative, it was anticipated that there would be enhanced livelihoods through the improvement in incomes of smallholder farmers and a reduction in rural poverty, in addition to building community resilience against climate change-related challenges.
At the end of the study, NORPRA finds that the intended purpose of the initiative has eluded the beneficiaries. The dams, which were supposed to provide water for irrigation during the dry season, are dry and thirsty themselves.
Bismark Adongo says his team visited at least 50 dam sites across the 5 northern regions, and virtually all of them were empty, causing hardships to farmers who depend on irrigation for their farming activities.
NORPRA believes the situation with the dams is a result of shoddy work, lack of proper planning, and inadequate consultation with experts. He tells THSJ that he cannot understand why dams built in certain parts of the country’s north in the 1970s still hold water throughout the year, but these relatively new ones are empty.
The 1V1D initiative was largely funded from the country’s oil money, from the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA). NORPRA estimates that about GHC50 million of state funds have been pumped into “empty dams” – monies, it says, that should not be allowed to go to waste.
The NGO is therefore calling on the government to hold people who were in charge of the initiative responsible and ask them to account for their work and the funds pumped into the project.
“Small dams that were constructed in northern Ghana before One Village One Dam still have water. The question is why One Village One Dam doesn’t have water. It is either that it was poorly constructed or that there was shoddy work. People just decided to do whatever they want to do,” he lamented.
The Executive Director further stressed that, “We are asking the government that policy makers and actors involved in the one village one dam initiative should be made to account for their actions and inactions. They must be made to account for the money. We can’t afford to use Ghana’s oil money this way.”
Already, the findings of the tracking and assessment of the dams have been presented to the Upper East Regional Minister, Donatus Akamugri. NORPRA says it is committed to ensuring that money used on the “non-functioning” dams is accounted for in full.
