Ho Under Siege

Bushfires have once again reached their astronomical heights as is common with this time of the year, yet the case of Ho, the Volta regional capital, is so alarming that many well-meaning citizens are expressing concerns.

The situation, which can be likened to a besieged city about to fall into enemy hands, is indeed appalling and unfortunate when one considers the fact that the town prides itself on the fact that it heads both a region and district on the administrative map of Ghana.

For instance a Chronicle environmental monitoring exercise conducted over a four-week period portrayed a very disturbing picture about eco-tourist prospects there.

From the southwestern end towns like Zoipe, Adaklu-Kpogadzi, Batome, Kpetoe and Agortime Afegame are worst hit areas. Apart from the thousands of hectares of vegetation that had been destroyed several high-tension electricity poles have either been severely burnt or partially touched by rampaging fires. Pitiably both sides of the road that lead, to Ho have been lined with "mountains" of firewood and charcoal ostensibly for sale.

Towards the west it is easy to count towns like Akrofo, Klefe, Agorwu, Gbogame and Hoviefe while the southern road towards Accra runs through Anyirawase, Tsito, Dededo and Sanga, which have all tasted recent fires.

Miserably, the beautiful Kabakaba Hill, which is part of a mountain range that projects into the heart of the city is now nothing to write home about. And indeed but for the recent rains the situation would have been indescribable.

When Chronicle contacted the regional programmes officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Torgbi Akliku Ahormey II who is incidentally the chief of Manfi-Dadoboe Traditional Area, he said Ghana's approach to handling matters on bushfires are failing woefully and called for a change.

He said, "since we cannot eliminate bushfire let us manage it instead of trying to abstain from it. It is a necessary evil".

The environmentalist lectured that when bushes are left to overgrow large biomass and combustible matter are gathered, which discharge intense and uncontrollable heat when they eventually catch fire. He likened such infernos to the ones that took place in California and Australia.

The EPA boss regretted that not a single person had been prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to others.

On his part, the regional engineer of Electricity Company of Ghana, Mr. Jones Ofori-Addo, said damaged poles cost the government huge sums of money and called for tougher laws on indiscriminate bushfires.

Mr. Ofori-Addo said, "it is sad that foreign loans are contracted for, say, 30 years to purchase poles only to be burnt; leaving the burden of paying the loans to future generations". He, however, added that poles are replaceable but life is not. To him damage to the soil is even more painful.

Earlier the district National Disaster Management Organisation director, Mr.Divine Darkey, told the paper that poor funding had been their headache. He said the district assembly had failed to release its 5% share of revenue for disaster management.

Mr. Darkey hinted that he had no alternative than to virtually go begging churches and non-governmental organisation's for financial aid; and lamented that even when such help comes they are either grossly inadequate for the task or they come at the donors' convenience when much harm had been done.

At the time of filing the report, the district chief executive, Hon. Mawutor Goh, could not be reached for comments as he was reported to be out of town whenever the move was made to contact him.