One-Village-One Dam, a 'monumental' waste of Ghana's Money - Mahama

Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has described the one-village-one-dam (1V1D) policy by the ruling New Patriotic Party as a ‘monumental’ waste of taxpayers’ money.

The former president said the NPP government failed to fulfil its promise, since it constructed ‘dugouts’ instead of proper, usable dams in the villages.

According to Mr Mahama, who is on 4-day campaign tour of the Upper West Region, the 1V1D policy was a mere campaign rhetoric the NPP used in 2016 to solicit for votes.

“In 2016 when the NPP came with the promise of one-village one dam, I personally asked what kind of dam are you talking about because there are different kinds of dams but they refused to answer."

"I said I hope it’s not dugouts you’re going to build for us because we don’t need dugouts anymore after we decided to provide clean drinking water for our people most of our communities have small-town water systems or boreholes."

"And so my hope is that the dams you’re talking about are for irrigation purposes so that our young people can engage in dry season farming or gardening. But there was no response.”

Mr Mahama added: “The promises sounded very good and Ghanaians said let’s give them a try. Today the dams that they talked about are dugouts they are not even proper dugouts because most of our dugouts are able to keep water during dry season. These dugouts when the Minority went to inspect them in January-February most of them were dry.

"Even a few cows can drink all the water in the one-village one-dam dugouts. So the one-village one-dam has been a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money. We dug dams under GSOP, they should go and see the dams we dug under GSOP, massive, holding water throughout the year and good for irrigation purposes.”

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The NDC has already disclosed its intentions to prosecute the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, for causing financial loss to the state through the 1V1D initiative, when they come to power.

The Communication Director of the NDC, Mr Sammy Gyamfi, sounded this warning at a press conference organised at one of the dried-up dams at Nakpachie in the Northern Region.

Sammy Gyamfi said “the much-touted one village-one dam programme of the government has failed to achieve its intended purpose of driving all-year agriculture in northern Ghana”.

“You’ve heard Bawumia brag about one village-one dam; you’ve heard President Akufo-Addo himself, shamelessly, brag about having constructed dams in northern Ghana. What you see here today, this structure, this excavated area, which doesn’t even have a drop of water, not even a teaspoon of water, is what this government has been bragging about.

“That should let you know how dishonest, how deceptive, and wicked this government is”, Mr Gyamfi told journalists.

According to him, the “shoddy” job done by the Akufo-Addo led government, has brought a huge loss to the public purse.