The absence of suitable lands in the Ketu South Municipality is hindering infrastructure development of the area, according to the Municipal Engineer, Kingsley Oduro.
Ing Oduro said although the area is in dire need of basic infrastructure amenities such as schools, health and sanitary facilities, the scarcity of the lands as well as its nature denies the municipality of most of such projects.
Citing various instances where land acquisition hampered allocation of infrastructural projects, the Engineer lamented that limited land space is affecting the growth of the area.
“It took us almost a year to get a site for a six sitter toilet facility in Agbozume. Even the land we got was portions of the Chief’s palace he donated for the project; we demolished part of the palace wall for the construction. Same applied to a new chips compound that we constructed in Agbozume; we had to squeeze the new structure on the premises of the existing one”.
He added “there is overcrowding in some of our schools and we need to expand or build more schools. But because there are no spaces we may have to consider demolishing the structures to build storey buildings. Example is the border school in Aflao. Although we need more projects, our problem here is getting lands”.
The Ketu South Municipality is located along the Atlantic Ocean, with chunk of land under threats of sea erosion and the limited ones being wetlands. Lands are precious to residents here; hence they loath to donate their lands for public use.
The Engineer is therefore appealing to the chiefs and elders of the area to encourage landowners to willingly offer lands for government projects when needed.
Mr Oduro revealed this to Citinews during a monitoring exercise by members of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) on some oil revenue funded projects in the Volta Region.
The exercise led by the Vice Chairman of PIAC, Mr Kwame Jantuah is to among things ensure value for money on the component of the petroleum revenue that is injected into the consolidated Fund meant to support the country’s development.
A number of projects in the Volta Region including the Tadzewu-Devego road, Atorkor –Anyanui Sea Defence Projects, Ketu South Water expansion Project, Aflao town roads and Keta Town Roads were largely funded by the oil revenue.
The team, as part of their visits held town hall meetings in the various beneficiary communities to educate them on the management of the country’s oil revenue. The members have so far visited Seventy (70) MMDCEs in the country.
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By: Norbert Akpabli/citifmonline.com/Ghana