It has come to light the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto’s attention has been drawn to the litany of problems facing farmers who farm on irrigable portions of land around the Vea Irrigation Dam.
To this end, the Minister, Dr. Akoto has begun engagements with regional stakeholders to properly identify the key problems and map out their solutions. The Minister is also said to have begun processes to seek funding support from development partners and donor organisations to invest in a complete rehabilitation of the Vea Irrigation Dam.
It has been said that the Vea Irrigation Dam Project, since its completion has not seen any major facelift leaving it to deteriorate. The dam is heavily silted while the canals are broken. The laterals that lead to the farmlands are in a state of complete disrepair thus leading farmers to spend more on pumping water for their crops.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East, the MCE for Bolgatanga, Rex Asanga disclosed that this was made known to him after the Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu’s engagement with the Agric Minister.
Mr. Asanga explained that the attempts of the farmers to revamp tomato production in the region is highly commendable and suggested that government will continue to support such farmers.
“I just got off the phone with the Regional Minister who is in Accra. He tells me that he met the Minister of Agriculture in Tamale and he brought up the issue with him. It does appear that the Minister for Agriculture is thinking of accessing some funds for the complete rehabilitation of the Vea scheme”.
“Government has intentions to revamp the whole place but besides that one, we were thinking of in our own small way, how to help production to go on. Some of these government interventions can take some time especially when you are sourcing foreign monies,” he said.
To this end, repair works have begun on the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council’s (UERCC) excavator. When this is done, the excavator will provide temporally solutions to the problem of siltation while government finds the resources for the complete rehabilitation.
A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
