Weija Dam under siege - Minister warns encroachers to stay away

The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Dr Freda Prempeh, has warned encroachers building close to the Weija Dam to desist from it or risk being prosecuted, and their build­ings pulled down by the National Security.

She said it was illegal for structures to be put up less than 500 metres away from the dam, adding that such activities had the tendency of causing destruction over time.

Dr. Prempeh, who gave the warning during a working visit to the Weija Dam and the Kpone Landfill Site said, ensur­ing encroachers stayed away from the country’s dams was not the responsibility of the sector minis­try or theGhana Water Company Limited (GWCL) only.

She, therefore, called on the municipal and district assemblies to ensure permits were not issued to people for construction to be undertaken at unauthorised places.

“We have been saying this all the time but still there appear to be some recalcitrant individuals. Therefore while we take strong measures to salvage the situation, we must also appeal to our major stakehold­ers including opinion leaders and assemblies to work collaboratively with the ministry and the GWCL­to protect our water bodies and dams,” she said.

She also mentioned that her out­fit would not look unconcerned for preventable disasters to occur, adding that if it would take the intervention of National Security to ensure compliance with the laws, that option will be considered as a matter of urgency.

At the Kpone landfill site, the minister expressed satisfaction at the progress of work done so far and urged engineers to continue to work assiduously for the successful completion of the project.

“I believe you have done a good work considering how this place was and how you have been able to turn it around. There is still more room for improvement though and we hope you will be able to work within time so that when the rains set in there will be no challenges,” she added.

The head of projects, Zoomlion, Mr Kwadwo Osei, assured that work on the site would continue to be done effectively.

Work on the Kpone landfill site which started eight years ago, with the initial intention to process waste generated by the then Tema Metropolis (now sub-divided into Tema Metro and Kpone Municipal­ity) was receiving much more waste than was expected, escalating into an unpleasant situation that needed urgent response.

The former Minister of Sanita­tion and Water Resources, Cecilia AbenaDapaah, during one of her visits to the site, assessed the difficulties that the community had had to face in dealing with smoke, fire, and the leakage of poisonous liquid and polluted air into their water bodies from the site, pushed for thede-commissioning and re-engineering of the Kpone San­itary landfill site to help overturn the problems the community had to endure.

The contract was eventually awarded to Zoomlion Ghana and work commenced on June 1, 2020.