The National Democratic Congress flagbearer, John Mahama has called the Akufo-Addo government’s One Village One Dam project “a monumental waste of tax payer’s money”.
According to him, government has failed to provide value for money in the execution of the policy.
The One Village One Dam policy was an agricultural driven initiative by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to build dams for irrigation purposes and to promote dry season farming in the Northern part of Ghana.
Per the policy, about 560 dams were to be built by the end of 2020, however, according to the former president, the few that were successfully constructed have either been washed away by heavy torrential rains or are unable to hold any water.
Speaking at the Manwe Naa’s palace in the Upper West Region as part of his campaign tour, former president Mahama bemoaned the poor nature of the dams referring to them as “dugouts”.
He said that upon hearing the promise of dams by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2016 election campaign, he was concerned about the type of dams that were going to be constructed.
“I said I hope it’s not dugouts you’re going to build for us because we don’t need dugouts anymore after we decided to provide clean drinking water for our people most of our communities have small-town water systems or boreholes,” he said.
He hoped that the dams were designed for “irrigation purposes so that our young people can engage in dry season farming or gardening”.
According to Mahama, the NPP in the run towards the 2016 elections buttered Ghanaians with sweet-sounding promises which they have since failed to fulfil after being given the mandate to rule the nation.
He cautioned the people not to be swayed by the promises the NPP have started churning out ahead of the December polls.
He said, “The promises sounded very good and Ghanaians said let’s give them a try. Today the dams that they talked about are dugouts, they are not even proper dugouts because most of our dugouts are able to keep water during the dry season.
“These dugouts when the Minority went to inspect them in January-February most of them were dry…So the one-village one-dam has been a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money,” he concluded.
Source:myjoyonline
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