Development is about people and in that process there are losers and winners. Development also brings about a desired change aimed at improving the lot of people.
For every development activity, be it a health project, road or hydro dam construction, there are people who are happy, while others kick against it. One of the reasons for people to kick against development is that they may lose their land, heritage or sources of livelihood.
In our part of the world, the promise of compensation is always delayed and when that happens governments attribute it to the fact that people are competing for limited resources.
Some people may also kick against development projects because of their religious beliefs. For instance, the land acquired for the project may serve the religious needs of the people.
Not too long ago, there was a struggle between the contractors working on the Achimota-Ofankor road and the people of the area because a tree that stood in the way of the project was considered sacred.
There was a tussle over the felling of the tree but eventually the people agreed, only after compensation had been paid and pacification carried out.
Again, not too long ago, some landowners along the Nsawam-Suhum and the Madina-Pantang roads blocked the roads to demand the immediate payment of compensation by the government.
Even at the Judgement Debt Commission, there are reports of people demanding compensation for lands acquired for projects dating back to the pre- and post- independence eras.
It may sound medieval and be described as backwardness by some people the claim of the chiefs and people of Shama that until officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA) pacify the gods of the land, the generators of the T3 plant will never work.
Nana Kwabena Atton III, the Spokesperson for the chiefs, said officials of the VRA were aware of the demands of the chiefs to settle the gods at Shama, explaining that “where the T3 is sited was a river which was a resting place for one of the gods of the land”.
The Daily Graphic thinks that here in Ghana there are customs, traditions and beliefs. Some of them may not sit well within the demands of our present dispensation. However, we think the VRA has been very slow in responding to the demands of the people of Shama.
We know there are challenges with the T3 plant and the demands of the chiefs may be a mere coincidence. The inefficiency of the plant may not be the work of the gods; it may be purely a technical problem.
But good corporate citizenship demands that there is good rapport between the VRA and the people of Shama to ensure a harmonious relationship and peaceful atmosphere in which the engineers can carry out their day-to-day activities.
We call on the VRA to look at the demands of the people and adopt a win-win approach to the challenges to facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship.
Power is in critical demand in the country and the last thing we should not do as a nation is allow the frustration of a community to boil beyond bounds to stall a project that will contribute to building our capacity for energy availability and efficiency.
