Elders pray to gods to end pollution

New Takoradi, Sept. 27, GNA — Elders of New Takoradi are planning to perform rituals to appease the god of Butuah lagoon, following the pollution of the water body.

The pacification is to enable the god help the elders find the cause of the pollution of the lagoon that had killed many aquatic creatures recently.

Mr. Emmanuel Edwin Adoko, the Assembly Member for New Takoradi Lower Electoral Area in New Takoradi in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, told journalists in Takoradi that following the pollution, the elders had banned people from swimming and fishing in the lagoon.

He said the elders contacted officials of companies operating around the estuary of the Butuah lagoon, to find out whether they were responsible for the pollution, but none of them accepted responsibility of the contamination.

In view of this, Mr. Adoko said the elders resolved to perform sacrifice to the god of the lagoon to help find the cause of the sudden death of marine creatures in the water body.

He said that the people of New Takoradi had been fishing for fishes and other marine creatures in the lagoon since time immemorial and had not experienced such disaster until the recent pollution.

An environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), Friends of the Nation based in Takoradi, had expressed skeptism about investigations instituted by the Environmental Protection Agency into the pollution.

According Mr. Kyei Yamoah, Programme Coordinator of the NGO, the outcome of the EPA’s sample test on the dead creatures would not bring any positive result to the residents of the town.

He said that about four year ago, there was a similar chemical pollution at Aboadze in the Shama District, where marine creatures were killed due to pollution by a company operating there.

However, after EPA assured the residents of Aboadze that it had instituted investigations into the pollution no sanction was instituted against the company.

Besides, no compensation was paid to the victims of the pollution at Aboazde, he said.

Mr. Yamoah charged the EPA to take the pollution at New Takoradi seriously, and identify individuals or companies culpable for sanctioning to serve as deterrent to others, especially at a time that the Region is harbouring a number oil companies.