One-village, one-dam a monumental waste of taxpayers money – Mahama

The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama has chided the Akufo-Addo government for wasting taxpayers’ monies on what he says is a failed one-village one-dam project.

The NPP ahead of the 2016 general elections promised to construct dams in villages across the northern part of the country to provide enough water for farmers to ensure all year farming, as well as for domestic purposes.

About 560 dams are expected to be constructed by the end of 2020. However, many have raised issues with the type of dams being constructed describing them as rather dugouts.

Addressing the Manwe Naa and his people in the Upper West Region as part of his campaign tour, Mr Mahama stated that even the dugouts that have been constructed instead of dams as promised by the government have been poorly done and serve no purpose.

“In 2016 when the NPP came with the promise of one-village one dam, I personally asked what kind of dam are you talking about because there are different kinds of dams but they refused to answer. I said I hope it’s not dugouts you’re going to build for us because we don’t need dugouts anymore after we decided to provide clean drinking water for our people most of our communities have small-town water systems or boreholes. And so my hope is that the dams you’re talking about are for irrigation purposes so that our young people can engage in dry season farming or gardening. But there was no response.”

Mr Mahama added: “The promises sounded very good and Ghanaians said let’s give them a try. Today the dams that they talked about are dugouts they are not even proper dugouts because most of our dugouts are able to keep water during dry season. These dugouts when the Minority went to inspect them in January-February most of them were dry. Even a few cows can drink all the water in the one-village one-dam dugouts. So the one-village one-dam has been a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money. We dug dams under GSOP, they should go and see the dams we dug under GSOP, massive, holding water throughout the year and good for irrigation purposes.”

He urged the people not to fall for the NPP’s sweet promises as the campaign heats up ahead of the December 7 elections.