Scores of residents in Accra are mounting intense pressure on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to, as a matter of urgency, disclose the whereabouts of US$600 million loan facility the assembly secured from the Exim Bank of United States of America (USA) in 2014, Today has gathered.
The angry residents who are mostly from Korle-Bu, Adabraka, Mantse Agbonaa and Sodom and Gomorrah otherwise known as Old Fadama, sources at the AMA head office in Accra said, were gearing up for a protest march to demand the whereabouts of the said money which was meant for the Korle Lagoon project. The loan facility, Today learnt, was to convert the Korle Lagoon into a fishing hub.
The worry of the residents, the paper understands, was the deliberate neglect by the government to reconstruct the one-time lagoon which used to serve as a source of potable water in the 1970s and 80s from going waste.
They could, therefore, not understand why after the AMA had contracted a loan facility for the Korle Lagoon project to restore it to its former state, it would fail to do that.
The Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE) of AMA, Dr. Okoe Vanderpuije, in 2014 at the 64th Annual New Year School announced that the Assembly, through the central government had secured an approximately US$ 600 million loan facility from the Exim Bank of USA to turn the polluted Korle Lagoon into a fishing lagoon.
According to the mayor of Accra, the lagoon has been dredged many times but, due to what has been described as "bad attitudinal behaviour," it fills up every time with garbage and other pollutants.
Dr. Vanderpuije was then reported to have said, “once-and-for-all dredging will make the lagoon suitable for fishermen to extend their fishing expeditions onto it which are part of several measures that the Assembly is putting in place in 2014 to adequately deal with the unsanitary conditions in Accra.”
However, one-year-four-months down the lane, the distressed residents averred that the Assembly has never showed any sign or commitment to start work on the much-publicised US$600 million Korle Lagoon project.
"We wonder why AMA has still not done anything to turn the lagoon into a fishing pond after taking that huge loan from the Exim Bank Fund for the project," the residents noted.
At a recent visit to the Korle Lagoon, Today observed that the lagoon was in a serious deplorable state.
Speaking in an interview with Today, water and environmental sanitation experts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who spoke on condition of anonymity predicted that Ghana would run out of clean water by 2025, noting that the Korle Lagoon may be one of such water bodies that has been destroyed within a short span.
Consequently, the experts at the EPA declared the lagoon virtually dead.
According to them, it can no longer clean itself of the effluent discharge from the highly populated residents on its banks.
In a bid to restore the dignity of the ailing lagoon, Today was told that the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration project (KLERP) was initiated to dredge the lagoon and then convert the areas around its bank into a recreational area.
However work on the project, Today findings revealed, was halted by the authorities at the AMA and government, attributing the stoppage to the continued pollution of the lagoon by residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Today further established that the machines meant for the project were virtually left to rot as they were not used.
This paper understands that the restoration project is in ruins and currently at the mercy of grazing cattle and the weather.
Nonetheless, the EPA claimed that the effluence discharged from industries located along the lagoon was not the cause of the pollution of the coastal wetland, rather the attitude of the residents. According to the Agency, the major cause of pollution is the disposal of liquid and solid wastes into the lagoon by those living in the catchment area.
Meanwhile, when Today contacted the Metro Director at the AMA via telephone on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 Mr. Sam Ayeh Dartey, declined to comment on the matter but rather asked this reporter to come to his office for more explanations on the issue.
However, when Today quizzed him further Mr. Dartey debunked the assertion by the residents that the Assembly had not done anything to restore the Korle Lagoon into its former state after securing US$600 million from the Exim Bank of USA.
He went on to discount the notion that the project was in ruins, revealing that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning is currently processing the final document on the project.
According to him, when the ministry finalises its documentation on the project and gives the green light, the Assembly will commence the dredging of the lagoon.
After all this, Mr. Dartey still insisted our reporter comes to his office for what he described as “technical” explanation.
He stressed: “We cannot continue to talk via telephone about this matter. Currently l am in town inspecting some on-going projects under the AMA.
"So I want you to come to my office at the AMA so that if you write any story on this project it will go a long way to educate the masses on the Korle Lagoon dredging project," Mr. Dartey added and then hanged up the phone on this reporter.
The Korle Lagoon is a coastal wetland comprising beautiful sand dunes, open lagoon, salt pans, marsh and scrubs, which provide extensive suitable feeding, roosting and nesting grounds for various species of seabirds and it used to be a haven for bird-watchers.
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