AMBASSADOR KWAME A. TENKORANG WRITES : BAGRE, WEIJA, AKOSOMBO DAMS SPILLAGES MUST BE WELL PLANNED TO AVOID DISASTERS

The aftermath of inundated communities has nothing to do with natural disaster. All are man made and therefore can be managed with PLANNING.

Has the Bagre Dam spillage not flooded our communities for at least the past twenty to thirty years on the trot? Beyond lamenting, what has been our  response to the perennial havoc?

Homes are flooded, farms are inundated, resulting in poor or no harvest at all. 

Every year we lament and throw enough blame capable of drowning the whole of Burkina Faso, the CULPRIT for spilling water to save their dam.

We saw the spillage of the Weija Dam last year and the devastation it caused in the catchment area.

 Afterwards, I had the opportunity to visit my friend Dr Abdallah who was marooned in his villa with a rooftop balcony until the flood waters receded.

Today, we have the giant dam itself to deal with, the Akosombo dam, in all its majesty,  has had to be spilled of its excess water to safeguard its integrity.

The rains have been heavy this year and it's only natural and practical that the dam must be saved from excess capacity. 

Thankfully, our prayers of two decades ago for water to fill the dam has been answered now.

Every dam that is build faces the risk of excess water that can affect its structural integrity and possible collapse. 

Spillage of excess water is therefore a normal activity of dam management. By hook or by crook, it will happen. My question is; how come we have always been unprepared for the aftereffects?

Do we deliberately refuse to plan so that we may look helpless and therefore pitiful beings in the eyes of the charitable? Or probably we lost our capacity to plan ever since Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown. 

Otherwise, how on earth are we able to be satisfied with lamentations and blaming everybody but ourselves for each episode of man - made, preventable disaster after disaster? 

May the residents of Tongu be comforted and assisted.
The question that I keep asking myself is how fatally has the "Vulture - effect" crippled our ability to ACT?

Ɔkyena mesi me dan! ( I will build my shelter tomorrow)!

The Writer, Ambassador Kwame A. Tenkorang, is the General Secretary, Council on Foreign Relations - Ghana.

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