General News of 2012-09-23

Turn Perennial Flooding Into Opportunities for Development – Bawumia

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, has said that there is an urgent need to solve the perennial flooding that affects parts of Northern Ghana as a result of the annual spillages from the Bagre Dam in neighbouring Burkina Faso by finding technical ways to utilize productively, the waters that eventually flood communities and lands.

Dr. Bawumia made the statement on Friday when he visited Chama, a community near Janga in the Northern Region which has been adversely affected by flooding in the past few days as a result of heavy rains and the opening of the gates of the Bagre Dam.

Speaking at the end of a six (6) kilometre road which has been completely flooded, Dr. Bawumia said “we have to think very seriously as a country about how to deal with these perennial flood situations. We have to be a little imaginative in looking at long term solutions to this problem. We should look at flood control methods which might be able to fit into our requirements for irrigation, so that if we can divert some of these waters into dams for example, we would be able to prevent most of these floods and at the same time be able to use these waters for irrigation. So we have to look imaginatively at this and see whether we can turn this adversity of water coming in and destroying the lives of our people into potential opportunities

We cannot just sit idly every year only for us to come inspect flood damage and give relief items, only to come back the next year to do the same thing. We need to take bold steps. It is most important that we take a new approach at solving this problem permanently. Obviously, we would have to let the technical people give us the technical solutions to some of these problems but the end goal is to find a more permanent solution”, he said.

The NPP Vice-Presidential candidate pledged that the NPP administration under Nana Akufo-Addo had progressive plans to ensure that such hardships are permanently dealt with.

Dr. Bawumia also visited Alavanyo, a mainly ewe settler community near Janja which has also been devastated by the floods.

At Alavanyo, Prosper Abotsi, a youth leader of the community stated that despite continually voting for the NDC since 1992, the community has never received or interacted with any prominent leader of the NDC on their concerns and issues and was grateful to Dr. Bawumia for taking the time to visit the community and see at first hand their problems. He pledged that the community would support the NPP in the upcoming elections to ensure that the NPP gets the power to transform their lives and solve their problems.

Dr. Bawumia again assured them that when voted into power, the New Patriotic Party government would aggressively find permanent ways of dealing with the annual flooding by for example utilizing the waters from the Bagre dam and regular heavy rains for irrigation and other productive ventures.