A hydrological engineer and former registrar of the Engineering Council, Ing. Wise Ametefe, has predicted that future spillages of the Akosombo dam will be catastrophic.
According to him, the height of the dam is problematic and will certainly have disastrous consequences should it develop any faults in the future.
“I have a problem with the way the dam has been designed with respect to the height. The walls appear to be too high thereby trapping a lot of water. It could have been made lower. High means that even if there is a fault at Akosombo, the level at which the flood height will spread and the speed with which it will go will be bad for us. We could have had a lower dam and even this volume of water could have been stored in other downstream or upstream reservoirs,” he said on Accra-based Citi TV.
Ing. Ametefe attributed the current spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams and the resultant devastation to a lack of coordination among the agencies charged with ensuring the smooth running of the dams.
He stated that, the destruction caused can also be largely attributed to the ineffective flow of information in the Akosombo enclave.
He dismissed claims that, the spillage was a result of an engineering failure.
“What is happening is not an engineering failure, it is a lack of coordination among agencies operating within the Volta Basin because information must be passed from one part to the other and the Volta River Authority happens to be at the receiving end of the whole Basin so whatever happens at the upstream part of the river affects us here. What is happening is purely hydrological,” he added.
Over 20,000 residents in five districts in the Volta Region have been displaced as a result of the spillage.
Some water-borne diseases including cholera and diarrhea have been recorded as the victims use the polluted flood water for various chores.
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