Documents on compensation to Akosombo Dam flood victims presented
The External Resource Mobilisation Officer of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kojo Awuah Peasah, yesterday presented to the Judgment Debt Commission in Accra copies of documents on payments made to some communities that were inundated by floods during the construction of the Akosombo Dam on the Volta Lake in the 1960s.
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He represented the Chief Director of the ministry, who had been subpoenaed earlier by the commission, to submit documents on the basis of compensation payments of about GH¢1,237,721 made to community members displaced by the floods which resulted from the construction of Ghana’s first hydro-electric dam.
The specific documents requested by the commission were the fair valuation assessment reports from the Land Valuation Board (LVB) that constituted the basis for the payments.
Mr Peasah, who was accompanied by Mr David Agbele, Legal Counsel at the Finance Ministry, however, told the commission, presided over by the Sole Commissioner, Mr Justice Yaw Apau, that those documents were not readily available and that attempts were being made to locate them.
Documents presented
Mr Peasah, however, tendered in documents, including a letter from the LVB written in 2004 and addressed to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, which in turn wrote to the Finance Ministry asking that the amount requested be paid to the flood victims and a list of the claimants.
Explaining why the Finance ministry did not find it very important at the time to request documentation on the assessment done before payment was made, Mr Peasah said, “Once the claim was not in contention and once payment was going to be done through the LVB, we rather wrote to the Cabinet for directives, upon which the payments were made.”
According to the documents presented, communities that received payments included Pai, Makango, Krachi and Apaaso, all in the catchment area of the Volta Lake.
Justice Apau said some of the payments had, in some cases, generated litigation among the recipients, with some claiming that those who had received the money were not those who should have received it.
“There are some cases even in court over those who were paid some of the money,” he stated, and asked if the Ministry of Finance was aware of that.
Lands Commission appears today
The LVB, now the Lands Commission, which is scheduled to appear before the commission today, is expected to present the required documents.
A second case involving the Registrar-General in the matter of Kojo Abban and Co., Chartered Surveyors, and Kojo Abban Enterprise, was adjourned to December 11 because representatives were not present.
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