Tanyigbe Community protests acquisition of mountain range

Tanyigbe (V/R), Aug 11, GNA - The chiefs and people of Tanyigbe, a farming community near Ho, have asked the management of the proposed Kabakaba Hills Mineral Water Development Company to stay-off the Tanyigbe section of the Kabakaba Mountain range.

A resolution signed by Togbe Kwasi Adiko V, paramount chief of Tanyigbe Traditional Area, the divisional chiefs and 10 landowners copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday, asked the company not encroach on its part of the mountain range. It said the company would meet what they described as "appropriate resistance" from the community if it dared encroached. They contended that the mountain range serves as the only farmland for the community and feared for the future sustainability of the natural resources there, should the company take over the place. The resolution said the range also serves as water shed for streams and major sources of drinking water for people in the community for which reason the community was opposed to any form of acquisition by the company.

The resolution further expressed reservations at the rush by the company to carry out the project without recourse to due process. A document on the proposed company available to the Ghana News Agency said the main aim of the acquisition of rights in the acquired concession was to produce natural mineral spring water. It noted that the Kabakaba Hills remains one of the best tourist centres to provide pure, extremely tasty drinking water, which had served the entire Ho Township more than 100 years even in the periods of drought. "The provision of water from the Kabakaba Hills, a project embarked upon by some Germans of the Bremen Mission, by the middle of the 19th Century provides less than five percent of its potential", the document stated. It said the project was, therefore, conceived in the context of the 15-year National Tourism Development Plan, prepared in collaboration with the World Trade Organization, (1996-2010). "In this plan the natural, historical and cultural resources have been clearly identified with the objective of delineating private sector investment to sustain and maintain tourism development and community water projects in the country", the document said.