National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South and Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, has stated that last Thursday’s floods in the West Mamprusi District were caused by haphazardly constructed dams undertaken in the district by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He stressed that dams executed under the NPP’s flagship One Village One Dam Policy were done without professional and technical guidance and without a thorough understanding of the concept. These, he implied, led to the collapse of the banks of the dams which caused the devastating floods.
“It is their lack of understanding of the conceptualisation of their so-called one village one dam at Diani and Guabuliga which is responsible for this disaster. It was not done well, it was not done properly, it was not constructed with professional and technical guidance as it should have been. So may be this is a wakeup call.
“When you have a Government”, he continued, “which just wakes up and says one village one dam, they themselves don’t understand the concept, you see the disaster you’re seeing. You see what the women are going through,” he told Joy News today (October 3, 2020) when he visited the district.”
He then took on Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who visited the affected persons yesterday and made a donation, saying: he “must be ashamed. He must be ashamed. So you think that these people were waiting for him to come with a donation? They were living their lives very peaceful in a stable community and a stable village, happy with their lives with or without money. How much is his money going to do to do, I can’t guess that. But the NPP government and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia must take full responsibility, and even render an unqualified apology to all the three communities that they by their inaction or act of omission or commission in not getting the Diani and Wuabuliga one village one dam concept right have resulted in this substantial loss of lives, human property and other valuables. They have been rendered homeless.”
He then slammed the National Disaster Management Organization for delaying in providing relief items to the victims.
“I think that it is not even a person responsibility of Dr Bawumia. What we should see, and what I expected to see driving here is for NADMO to have been in with emergency support. So NADMO must have moved in. If they have not, they should as a matter urgency; we gave that mandate to manage disasters. And this is affecting human lives. Their personal belongings are gone,” he lamented.
On Thursday four villages Gaagbini, Diani, Tinkaya and Banawa were submerged in water after days of torrential rains forced a One-Village One-Dam project in Guabuliga to overflow its banks.
On Friday October 2, 2020, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia cut short his campaign tour of the Greater Accra Region and rushed to the district to commiserate with the victims and make donations. He donated GHC 100,000 to the victims and pledged to help them rebuild their collapsed houses.
