Posted: Daily Guide |Monday, 23 August 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
TWO DAMS serving the Wheta Afife Rice Irrigation project in the Volta Region, the electoral ‘world bank’ of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), are in ruins and face a shut down anytime soon.
The Wheta Afife Rice Irrigation project is located close to Afife, Awalavi and Wheta in the Mepe Traditional Area of the Volta Region.
The facility constitutes a major intervention for the communities which are located along the valley of the Afife Irrigation Project.
Currently, the people in the area collect water from pools in the valley and the two main dams, the Agale and Kplipka dams; a result of which the area is considered a guinea worm endemic zone.
The Agale (Gale) dam, which was built by the Russians in the 1960s and serves a portion of the project – section 2 to 11, is heavily silted and can only serve farmers for 15 days instead of the original forty-day period.
After the overthrow of the Nkrumah government, the Agale dam was completely shut down due to neglect by successive governments.
The Chinese government therefore came to Ghana’s rescue and took to resuscitate the dam when they began rehabilitation works at the Afife Rice Irrigation project site.
They ended up diverting the Agale dam’s course to join the Kplipka dam but never dredged it to hold enough water.
Currently, the Agale dam has been closed because of lack of water, a situation unfavourable for the survival of economic activities at Afife.
This disturbing signal is a clear indication of the urgent need for proper irrigation planning and management, among other initiatives, which are required to make sure Ghana’s already crippling rice industry is revived.
The Irrigation Development Authority (IDA) appreciates the fact that there is problem at hand and admits it is affecting rice production in the area and eventually the food basket of Ghana.
Chief Executive Officer of the IDA, Daniel Lamptey, attributes the existing situation at the two dam sites to the poor rainfall pattern that has been recorded across the length and breadth of the country.
That notwithstanding, he said they are making provisions to desilt the two dams in order to store more water since according to him, for the past 42years that the dams were built, they had not seen any serious maintenance work.
Whilst looking for alternative sources of water to connect them to the dams, the CEO said they are also considering the option of driving away all the individuals and group of persons who have started farming in and around the catchment area of the dams, since their activities and operations have somehow contributed to the situation.
The IDA says it is currently in talks with the Dutch and Chinese government to see how best to put the dams back in operation to boost rice cultivation to feed the country.
The Afife rice project is one of the 22 high-flying rice projects in the country, with two dams at the project site; each having waterways attached to it with an opening which allows water to pass through the canal.
Each section of the farm has a lateral, sub-lateral and the feeding ditches.
The canal conveys water from the dam into the lateral whilst the lateral feeds the sub-lateral and consequently the sub lateral gives water to the feeding ditch to allow the rice farmers to scoop the water onto their plots.
A visit to the project site on two separate occasions by DAILY GUIDE gave a clear indication of total neglect of the site, with serious consequences for the nation as rice is consumed as staple in almost every Ghanaian home.
A water bailiff at the Afife rice project site, Daniel Djan, summed up their frustrations. He said “our leaders are not helping us at all, they continue to fail us”.
Mr. Djan, who manages the delivery of water to all rice farmers at Afife, narrated their ordeal to the paper.
He said, “currently as water bailiffs, it is our duty to advise the management of the project to shut down the dam with immediate effect but we are also considering the fact that the farmers have invested a lot of money, so we are just supplying them with the little water left to enable them to get their seed for the next season which will be in April next year”.
Daniel Djan was emphatic when he described the current state of the two dams serving the project, saying, “Water in the dam is finished, and the dam must be dredged immediately”.
He further indicated that some engineers on the rice project which is under government control claimed that silting of the two dams was caused by global warming.
He was however hopeful that if there is any inflow of water which is significant, they as water bailiffs will open the dam to assist farmers who are in need and are hungry.
This brings to question the claim by government that the country’s self-sufficiency in rice production stands at about 30 percent, leaving a shortfall of 70 percent (this figures are being disputed as data suggest these same figures were given in 2000).
Staggering statistics, coupled with lack of commitment on the part of government, has led to a situation where these rice farmers will continue to wallow in poverty if pragmatic policies are not put in place.
The water bailiff says he has been working at the project site since August 17, 1982 and that “since that time I came over, the Gale Dam has never been dredged and its needs complete dredging.”
“If the dam is not dredged, it means government is telling the people to go out of the village to go and work elsewhere; a situation which will cause massive unemployment in the town and dislocate the youth of Afife,” he said worryingly.
For this reason, he said “the government must quickly get involved to assist the farmers dredge the project dams.”
Considering the way the project has been handled over the years, he could not but ask rhetorically “why wouldn’t they want to come and dredge the dams for the farmers to prevent the youth from harassing people.”
As a result of the current state of the dam, residents of the area have started farming in it. Others have also built their houses on portions of the dam.
This poses a serious threat to the very survival of the water body since the water is not enough to irrigate the project, leading to loss of economic activities.
The fear is that the current and existing situation of the dam would eventually lead to the failure of the Afife Rice Irrigation Project, since most of the farmers in the area have begun farming in the already destroyed dam in order to have easy access to the little wet land available to grow okro, cassava and other vegetables.
As it is now, the Agale dam, according to a farmer, Mr Ametordzi, is nothing but a waste.
The other main dam that serves the Afife Rice Irrigation project is the Kplipka dam.
The Kplipka dam, which is supposed to hold water up to 5 meters, currently has been choked to an extent that its gauge only reads 1.5 meters, a situation which calls for the shutting down of the dam.
The reading pillar is 5 meters but currently the water in the dam stands at 1.30 meters.
The water bailiff told us during the visit that the dam will be shut down on Wednesday, August 18, 2010.
“We have to cut off water supply immediately because the inflow is more than low, if there is any inflow which can allow the water in the dam to reach about 1.40 feet, we will then open the dam again. It is important that we stop the supply of water to maintain the Kplipka dam,” he said.
The nine filters of the dam are currently buried in the soil that has virtually taken over the water.
The total storage capacity of the Kplipka dam is 29,000 gallons, with a maximum height of 11, 00.5meters.
Its width spans four meters, with a catchment area of 8.5 kilometers.
Under the current circumstance, the livelihoods of over 1,000 rice farmers in the area remain uncertain.