About 1,000 farmers from the Upper East and North East Regions will be marching to present a petition to the Vice President, Alhaji Mahamadu Bawumia, and the Northern MPs.
The move is to call on them to prioritise the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project for investment as part of the IMF negotiations.
“The only sector that can salvage the country at this particular moment is agriculture and agricultural productivity depends on the availability of rain. So, we think that if we prioritise this area, or invest in irrigation in the long term, we will be able to produce enough for export. So, the current challenges in the country are one of the reasons that informed the timing of this march. Secondly, the IMF negotiation that is ongoing is also a reason that informed the timing of the demonstration around this time.”
Dr. Charles Nyaaba, the Executive Director of Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) who disclosed this on A1 Radio’s NEWS LINK said the peace march will take place on Thursday 27 October 2022 in Nalerigu in the North East Region.
“We are mobilising our members who are smallholder farmers, assembly members, and Civil Society Organisations in Upper East and North East Regions to gather at Nalerigu which will host the dam. We will march and present a petition to the Vice President and after that, we will present a similar petition to the Northern MPs in parliament so that they will prioritise the construction of this dam in their discussions”, he added.
According to Dr. Nyaaba, PFAG had submitted inputs to demand the Finance Ministry allocate monies for the construction of the dam, “but we found that, usually, the money that is allocated is from GoG and such monies cannot be relied on and that money is not enough for such a big project”
While calling on the government to prioritise the construction of the dam, the Executive Director of Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana said the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project if implemented can end urban migration from the north to southern Ghana through job creation.
The sod cutting for the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam project took place on 29th November 2019 in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
President Akufo-Addo at the groundbreaking ceremony said the US$993 million cost of the project that was awarded to SYNO-HYDRO Company Limited, a Chinese company, was expected to be completed in four years.
Three years after its well-attended sod-cutting ceremony, construction of the project has come to a halt and the contractor parked out of the site.
The Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project was expected to serve as a permanent solution to the perennial flooding experienced in the Upper East Region, North East Region, and other parts of the north due to torrential rains and the annual spillage of the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso.
It was expected to be used to generate electricity and enable farmers to embark on all-year-round farming.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Bolgatanga
