Save us from the ravaging sea - Residents cry out

Residents of Tegbi in the Anloga District are calling on authorities to intervene to stop the ravaging effects of the perennial sea erosion, which poses danger to three coastal communities of the Volta Region.

The call followed days of the sea’s attack resulting from high tidal waves blundering the land since a week ago at Kedzikope-Abutiakope and Tegbi areas in the Keta Municipality and Anloga District respectively.

A visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to Tegbi beach at the weekend revealed evidence of ferocious tidal waves eroding the ridges and leveling the remaining of the sand dunes, which would have enabled the sea to freely flow into the human settlement.

Some people the GNA spoke with said, this had been happening around August every year for some period now, which they feared could consume the shoreline, take their homes and destroy their only form of livelihood and the lives of their dependents.

“The 2019 one was more severe. We’re living in fear. We only hope that things don’t get out of hand before help finally comes to us. Yesterday morning and evening, we suffered tidal waves attacks. It is a continuous phenomenon and these are the debris we’re sweeping. We don’t know how it will be this evening,” Madam Kwashiwor Gavor lamented.

Torgbui Wordui Agbodo, Tegbi Chief fisherman, bemoaned the activities of sand winners at the beach and pebble collectors from the sea at nearby communities as the cause of the recent attacks and the consequent hardship on Tegbi fishers.

“These sand winning and pebbles collection unsettle the sea, resulting in it attacking the land in an attempt to fill and level up other areas. When this happens, we the fisher folks suffer. Right now, there’s no way we can go to sea. Net owners with fishing crews will have to find a source of funding to maintain the crew until a time the raging of the sea stops.”

Mr Noel Kokoroko, Assemblyman for Tegbi Afedome, said the community had alerted the local assembly and the relevant authorities to the plights of the people and hoped help would come.

But an elderly woman who lives closest to the beach with her grandchildren called on law enforcers not to look on while people defy the ban on sand winning, alleging areas which “collect floor water from the sea are relentless spots for sand winning” and said it could have disastrous consequences if allowed to continue.

Decades of sea erosion resulted in the unfortunate destruction of greater part of a one-time cosmopolitan Keta with a national reputation for its rich and vibrant lifestyle including parts of Fort Prinzenstein.

Others included the Moslem cemetery, the Zion Church, schools and cemetery, the Ewe Presbyterian Church, schools and cemetery, the Public Works Department workshops, the Police Station & barracks, the Town & Country Planning Department, Croydon and Premier Cinema houses, the Post Office & Telephone Exchange, The Surfboat Park & Goods Warehouse as well as private homes of notable families.