Reports from the northern part of Ghana indicate that farmers operating along the White and Black Volta rivers are bearing the brunt of the spillage from the Bagre and Kompienga dams in Burkina Faso, resulting in hundreds of hectares of farmlands under water.
While no casualty has so far been recorded, daily staples such as rice, millet and sorghum farms have either been washed away or submerged. And, as usual, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), benevolent organisations and individuals would be called upon by the victims to come to their aid.
The Chronicle is flabbergasted by this development of the spillage from the Bagre and Kompienga dams in Burkina Faso, which has become an annual ritual, including Mamprugu/Moaduri District and the West Mamprusi Municipality in the North East Region, with no solution in sight.
Ironically, nearly 68 percent of Ghanaians in the Northern Region live on less than $1.25 a day, and the stunting rate among children under five is as high as 40 percent in some districts.
The paper is finding it difficult to come to terms with the perennial flooding, when the matriarch Akosombo, Kpong and Bui Hydro dam are not running at their full capacities, due to a drastic drop in water levels.
Just yesterday, the Volta River Authority (VRA) reported that the water level of the Akosombo Hydropower Dam had dropped from 265.20 feet (80.832 metre) on September 13, 2021 to 263.80 feet (80.406 metres) in September 13, 2022. Meanwhile, it has a water storage capacity of 278.0 feet (84.73 metres).
Ghana has been compelled by the circumstances of the abysmal performance of its hydro plants to fall on other energy sources such as solar and thermal to sustain its industries.
Interestingly, among Ghana’s energy mix, hydro remains the most reasonable or cheapest source. Yet, water that we desperately need as a country to turn the turbines to produce cheap electricity is literally becoming a nuisance upstream.
On the other breadth, Ghana in this 21st Century with technology at peak continues to depend on rainfall for agriculture.
The effect of over-dependence on rainfall for agriculture has contributed or exposed over 1.2 million of the Ghanaian population to food insecurity, per data from the World Food Programme (WFP).
The government, in an effort to provide all year round irrigation of crops for farming communities, particularly in the northern part of the country, introduced the One-Village-One-Dam initiative. The flagship programme is aimed at addressing annual droughts that affect crop farming and animal husbandry.
The then Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, told Parliament that at least GH¢250,000.00 had been invested in the construction of each of the Small Earth Dams.
However, The Chronicle is of the firm belief that the spillage should not totally be a curse to Ghana, which is downstream of Burkina Faso, since there is the need for water for industrial purposes, farming and domestic use.
Therefore, while we are calling on the government to institute early warning system to avoid the destruction of farmlands, livestock and homes, it need to invest in water storage systems in response to droughts and other emergencies.
