982.5 billion cedis needed to reconstruct Northern Ghana

Tamale, Oct 27, GNA- An approximated amount of over 982.5 billion cedis would be required to reconstruct the infrastructure destroyed by the recent floods that devastated Northern Ghana. The provisional estimates compiled by the offices of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in the Northern, Upper East and West Regions covers education, water, roads, bridges and the general social infrastructure.

Others are sanitation and hygiene, human settlement and sustainable livelihoods programmes.

Alhaji Alhassan Mahamoud, Northern Regional Coordinator of NADMO disclosed this during a visit by a World Bank Mission to the Northern Regions.

They were accompanied by Regional Ministers of the three regions, NADMO officers and officers from the Community Based Rural Development Project (CBRDP) and the Northern Region Poverty Reduction Programme (NORPREP) in Tamale on Friday.

The purpose of the meeting was to assess the extent of damage caused by the floods and find out how best the World Bank could use the CBRDP to solve some of the problems brought about by the floods. Mr. Peter Kristen, the World Bank Sector Leader for Sustainable Development said the Bank through the existing projects of the CBRDP would spend some money to improve upon nutrition, malaria control and education in the disaster-affected regions.

He said for the immediate future, the Bank would concentrate on emergency relief, reconstruction and development and in the long-term measure contribute to studies on the opportunities for the economic development of Northern Ghana and road sector development.

Alhaji Mahamoud said for the Northern Region, over 612.6 billion cedis would be required for reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure. He said the floods destroyed 18 classroom blocks and 1499.27 kilometres of trunk and feeder roads and this would require 5.9 billion cedis and 166.1 billion cedis respectively to be reconstructed. In the area of water and sanitation a total of 633 boreholes and hand-dug wells were contaminated, while 9,707 buildings were also destroyed saying that these would require 12.3 billion cedis and 310 billion cedis respectively to repair.

For the Upper East Region an estimated 269.8 billion cedis would be required to reconstruct damaged infrastructure. The floods destroyed 163 classroom blocks, which would require 64.6 billion cedis to construct, 117 trunk roads requiring an amount of 7.5 billion cedis and 735.1 km of feeder roads needing 109.8 billion cedis to reconstruct.

Alhaji Awudu Yiremiah, Deputy Minister for Local Government Rural Development and Environment (MLGRDE) expressed his displeasure about the way some people were trying to politicise the flood disaster and urged them to put a stop to it.

He said the disaster should be of national concern, and the government was doing its best to alleviate the plight of the people and also source for the necessary funding to reconstruct the damaged infrastructure.

Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister expressed his fears that with the contamination of the sources of drinking water in the flood areas, it was likely the guinea worm disease would re-emerge and called on all stakeholders to help provide potable water for the people.

He hoped the interventions of the World Bank and other development partners would help accelerate the economic development of Northern Ghana.