1V1D: Go to Kpandai, Yeji, Yendi to see the dams – Koomson to Mahama

The Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, has said claims by former President John Dramani Mahama that the government has failed on its promise to build a dam in each farming village in northern Ghana, is false because some of the dams have been completed.

She said if the former president cared to know where the dams were, he could call her on the phone for directions to where the dams are sited.

Mr Mahama had said there are no signs of the government’s One Village-One Dam promise, on the ground after almost two years in office.

Addressing delegates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at Wechiau in the Wa West constituency as part of his three-day campaign tour of the Upper West Region, Mr Mahama pointed out that dugouts had always existed in the Savannah area, with the NDC government digging many for the people.

According to him, during his tour of Mamprusi West, as part of his Northern regional campaign, he saw the first experimental work of the One Village-One Dam programme, adding that what he saw cannot be described as a dam.

“Before the election, I asked them: ‘Are you talking of dugouts or irrigation dams?’ But they refused to answer. Apparently, they were thinking of dugouts”, he said.

Mr Mahama said under the Ghana Social Opportunities Project, the NDC government did many of the dugouts and rehabilitated older ones to support rural farmers undertake dry season farming to improve food security in the region.

“So, it is nothing new, and the One Village-One Dam, really, there was nothing in it. It is One Village-One Dugout; and even the dugout, where is it? The dugouts are not even there”.

“But that is the problem with the NPP, they believe that: ‘Promise anything just to win political power’. But the point is: If you overpromise and you win political power and you can’t deliver, then you create disappointment in the people for our democracy,” he added.

But speaking to journalists at the Ministry of Information in Accra on Tuesday, 13 November 2018, Ms Koomson said: “If he [Mr Mahama] wants to know where the dams are, he should contact me and I’ll take him there.

“When you go to Kpandai, we have one there; when you go to Salaga, from Yeji you cross the river to Salaga, there is one village there called Garishegu, there is one dam there. Yendi and Yeji, too.”

“These are some of the towns or villages that have received their completed dams,” she added.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, during the 2016 election campaign, promised to build a dam in each farming village of the three regions of the north, via a well-planned irrigation policy.