“The One Village One Dam concept, I am sure people are maybe politicising it. The 1V1D is supposed to create surpluses because of the all year round farming. Now if you do that, what are you going to do with the surpluses? You would have to add value to it. That is what we are calling One District One Factory. We are politicising it and we are playing with it.”
Tahiru Isshaku Ahmed, the DCE for the Bawku West District in the Upper East Region said this in favour of the government’s programmes geared at revolutionising agriculture and enhancing the country’s industrialization drive.
Mr. Ahmed comments were also in favour of his personal commitment to ensure the construction of a 4 million dollar dam at Timonde in the Bawku West area. The dam is expected to store flood waters from the Bagre Dam and the spillover from the Pwalugu Dam when constructed.
“I attended a workshop that was hosted by Professor Millar. It was about the Pwalugu Dam that was going to be constructed. The issue was that they are going to dam the White Volta and use it to provide irrigation facilities and those kinds of things. Professor Millar’s concern was that the Upper East Region was going to get its share in the form of floods. He said you people, [people of Bawku West], you would suffer it. You would lose your farmlands and all that. What came to my mind was, is water not a resource? If we are going to get nothing but water, then what do we use the water for? Should we allow the water to come and create floods and then we would complain?”
“I said if that would be the case, I would want to introduce a project that would dam that water [floods waters as a result of the construction of the Pwalugu Dam], keep it there; put up a treatment plant and treat part of that water and supply to my district as potable water. Then also use part of it as an irrigation facility to ensure that we engage our youth throughout the year,” he said.
When the dam is constructed, the DCE is confident that illegal mining activities would be reduced.
“When the dam is constructed, we’re going to get all the young guys doing galamsey to come back because they can still get their money without destroying their environment,” he said.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
