Dam spillage disaster: NADMO is rendered useless because of resource starvation - Sam George

The Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George, has said that the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) has been rendered useless.

This, he said, is due to the deliberate attempt by the government to starve the organisation of resources.

The MP’s comments came as a reaction to NADMO’s perceived failure in managing the disaster caused by the spilling of the Akosombo and Kpong dams.

Since VRA began its controlled spilling of both the Akosombo and Kpong dams, nearly 30,000 people in about eleven communities downstream of the Volta River have been displaced with many losing their sources of livelihood in the process.

Sam George in reacting to this on JoyNews, noted that there is a clear failure on the part of the government, VRA and NADMO.

He noted that NADMO has not been able to execute its mandate because it lacks resources and has been starved of resources.

“There are clear failures on the part of the VRA, central government, and a bigger failure is our inability to have a response mechanism to this. When the VRA moved to 100.000 per second, they knew what was going to happen. They knew the town was going to be submerged.

“On the point of disaster management, NADMO has been useless and it's because we have rendered it useless. How much money do we give to NADMO?” he questioned.

Expressing frustration over the lack of preventative measures before the spilling began, the MP questioned why the spilling didn't commence earlier, which could have facilitated a more controlled release over a prolonged period to minimise the impact.

“At what time, what calculation did they do to begin the spillage on September 15. Why did that spilling not start two weeks earlier. Because if you had started earlier, you would have been spilling in a controlled measure for a longer period of time,” he said.

Challenging the claims of engagement between VRA, NADMO, and the government with affected communities regarding relocation, Sam George condemned the lack of comprehensive planning and communication to the people about the scale and consequences of the spillage.

“That this is an insult to all of us, and I don't want to insult them. You have been spilling every year. They have been doing 20, 000 gallons per second which is what they started on September 15. If you are doing 20,000 and the people know that when you normally spill, what the effect is and you knew from you will move from the 20,000 to 100,000 gallons per second, did you tell the people that this was going to happen. When you say you told the people, did you give them a relocation place?” he asked.

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