Research findings conducted by the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) have uncovered that the government spent a whopping amount of Ghc 670, 000 to construct each dam under its flagship program, 1 Village 1 Dam, instead of the contract sum of Ghc 250,000.
The research was conducted for 285 dams across the 5 regions of the north to ascertain if the policy is serving its purpose – all-year-round farming, animal intake, and household purposes.
The Executive Director of NORPRA, Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, who disseminated the research findings, said the government has not been truthful to the Ghanaian taxpayer regarding the cost it spent to construct each dam.
“We were able to track expenditures of 285 1V1D and at the end of it all, we realised that the government spent over Ghc200,000,000 on these dams. And when we strike the average, we see that government spent over Ghc670,000 per dam against the contract sum, as we saw in the award letters, Ghc250,000,” he stated.
He said the government has not only dissipated the country’s oil money in financing the project, but the dams are not serving a purpose in increasing food security or creating jobs.
“Regrettably, the community members who participated in the focus group discussions and backed them up with what we called community scorecards said that the dams did not contribute in any way. So, we went further to the dams to see for ourselves, and shockingly, almost all the dams were dried up. no single dam was functioning and there was no dry season farming around any of the dams we went that went to”
The research findings, titled “Ghana’s Oil Money on Dried Dams,” was conducted by NORPRA, convener of the Coalition of Northern Ghana CSOs, and funded by the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP).
The research findings recommended an audit into all 1 Village 1 Dam policy by the Audit Service, as stated in the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policies of the Government, to ascertain value for money and promote accountability of Ghana’s petroleum revenue.
“The second recommendation is that the policy should be reviewed. The review of the policy should take into consideration the technical advice of GIDA and how functional small dams that predated 1V1D projects in northern Ghana were designed and constructed”, the report added.
In its report, NORPRA also demanded an investigation be conducted into the procurement process leading to the award of contracts for the construction of the dams.
Source:A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Bolgatanga|Ghana
