Contractors working on a number of sea defence projects have abandoned the projects due to lack of funds.
Affected areas in the southern part of the Western Region include Adjoa and Fonko in the Ahanta West District, parts of Sekondi/Takoradi and the Shama Beach, Abuesi and Anlo.
Visit
When a visit was made by Fonko and Adjoa, some residents said the contractors were still on site.
The situation, they said, was life threatening and called for construction work to resume immediately.
The beach resorts at Casablanca and Fonko have been completely destroyed.
At Abuesi in the Shama District, the residents said the contractor had abandoned the site.
Anlo Beach
At the Anlo Beach, the situation requires immediate evacuation to avert a looming disaster.
The residents said the situation had also negatively impacted on their fishing activities.
Meanwhile, the District Chief Executive for Shama, Mr Joseph Amoah, has acknowledged the challenges, saying: “We have taken the issue up and informed the sector ministry in Accra.”
He said the sector ministry had promised to take immediate action, and that the first phase of the project had been completed and the second phase was yet to receive the green light for its commencement.
Government accused
Meanwhile, Musah Yahaya Jafaru reports that the Ranking Member on the Committee on Works and Housing of Parliament, Mr Sampson Ahi, has accused the government of abandoning the sea defence projects started by the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.
He said the discontinuation of the projects, which included the erection of boulders to block the sea, had exacerbated the loss of lives and destruction of property caused by tidal waves along the coastline.
Mr Ahi, who is a former Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, urged the government to resume work on the sea defence projects to save lives and properties.
In an interview in Accra yesterday, he mentioned Sekondi, Takoradi, Shama, Winneba, Axim and Ada as some of the areas that were benefiting from sea defence projects,
“They have abandoned all of them (the sea defence projects) and so they are wreaking havoc on the people who live along the coast. We should not wait till there is disaster before we move out,” he said.
Pay contractors
Mr Ahi, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bodi, said the contractors had left the sites following the abandoning of the projects and urged the government to pay the contractors to enable them to go back and continue the projects.
“I urge the government to pay the contractors, so that they could go back and work,” he said.
Tidal waves
Residents along the coast of the country suffer the brunt of tidal waves which destroy their houses and canoes and sometimes lives.
The recent high tides that caused flooding in the Ketu South District in the Volta Region led to the closure of schools, as the classrooms served as makeshift homes for displaced residents.
The residents appealed to the government to relocate them, as some of them had already taken refuge in the homes of family members.
