We didn’t mislead VRA on spillage — GMet
The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) has said that the agency cannot be faulted to have misled the Volta River Authority in the matter of the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams.
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“While we sympathise with the unfortunate situation of the dam spillage, we wish to clarify that the Ghana Meteorological Agency cannot be faulted or alleged to have misled the VRA in this matter,” GMet said in a statement yesterday.
“The evidence available points to the fact that at all material times and in all advisories issued to the public, the agency forecasted above-normal rains this year,” it added.
The statement followed a supposed interview granted by the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the VRA, Samuel Fletcher, to the media, suggesting that the agency had misled the authority in the matter of the recent spillage of the Akosombo Dam.
“This assertion has also been reproduced on several other reputable news and online portals, generating wide commentaries across the political and social divide.
“We wish to put on record that the comment by the PRO of the VRA is false, unfortunate and a sharp deviation from the existing relationship between the agency and the authority,” the statement added.
It said the Ghana Meteorological Agency Act, 2004 (Act 682) mandated GMet to, among other things, “provide meteorological information, advisories and warnings for the management of energy and water resources to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of disasters such as flood”.
It said across the year, it had provided various services to the VRA regularly and updated through the relevant dissemination channels and platforms.
These, it said, included a release it issued on August 18, 2023, which forecast “minor rainy season for the southern sector of Ghana” and accurately “captured on the front page of the Daily Graphic with the headline “EXPECT MORE RAINS”.
While expressing regret about the events folowing the spillage, it expressed appreciation to “the clarification provided by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the authority, Operations and Engineering, emphasising the over 60-year relationship between the agency and the authority”.
