Asante Akyem North legislator, Andy Kwame Appiah-Kubi, has suggested that the person(s) directly responsible for the mayhem in some constituencies of the Volta region must not go unpunished.
His comment is in relation to the flooding in the area resulting from the spillage of water from the Kpong and Akosombo dams.
He says aside from calls emanating from various sources for the Volta River Authority (VRA) to answer questions relating to the sheer negligence displayed in the act, criminal charges should also be proffered to instil a sense of responsibility on whoever’s dereliction of duty amounted to the menace.
He says many of the residents affected by the floods are not indigenes of the area but took advantage of the bare land and settled on. But he says it was someone’s responsibility to have ensured that doesn’t happen and that person must be punished for his negligence.
“People have the mandate to prevent that and they don’t do it. This one VRA had the mandate to supervise construction in the whole catchment area and that it is on record that this place is not habitable. VRA owed a duty to the state to ensure that people did not settle there,” he indicated.
For that reason, the Member of Parliament thinks that beyond a probe by the VRA, individuals must be made to answer for their negligence to serve as a deterrent to others.
“, The people who would have caused this mess, they are sleeping somewhere and maybe they are even profiting from the mess. It’s the same thing in the road sector.
“Somebody goes to sign a certificate that it’s done, six months, the road starts to deteriorate, the man who has signed and paid him, he has taken his money and he is sleeping. Let’s bring the whole idea back and face the law and punish them. So that some of us will learn from it. Because this professional negligence must be a professional offence,” he said whilst speaking with Alfred Ocansey Saturday, October 21, 2023, on TV3’s The KeyPoints.
He explained why he supports a legal action to be taken against the VRA and further prosecution of individual(s) directly responsible for the human disaster being faced by residents along the Lower Volta Basin.
“Yes I support (charges against the VRA) but again when you say legal action you’re going to exact damages and it would go against VRA. But I want us to go beyond the civil action into a criminal realm then somebody who would have put his signature and something done, undone, will come and face the criminal trial,” he called.
The VRA opened the turbines of the Akosombo Dam on September 15 after the water level had reached its maximum. The Kpong dam which received the water from the Akosombo was also spilled causing the water to submerge the neighbouring communities.
Thousands of residents have been displaced with their homes and farmlands immersed into the floods.
With more water expected to be spilled due to the rains coming from the northern part of the country, residents in affected areas are going to experience the floods for some weeks.
Meanwhile, while some prominent voices including former President Mahama, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and others are calling on the government to declare a state of emergency, some MPs whose constituents have been affected have threatened to sue the VRA.
The residents are also calling on the government to relocate them to the abandoned Saglemi Housing unit until the floods recede.
