NADMO is broke – Keta MP

Member of Parliament for Keta Kwame Dzudzorli Gakpey, has underscored the urgent need of potable source of water and sanitation for his people who have been deluged by the tidal wave in the region.

He said as a result of the tidal wave, the people of Keta who survived on potable water from streams and wells has been left in dire need of potable source of water because the sea has overflown all those sources of potable water, making it saline and unfit for consumption by his constituents.

The MP appealed to the authorities to come to the aid of his constituents by urgently providing them with potable pipe borne water.

Mr Gakpey added that his constituency which used to be clean and sanitation conscious has been riddled with filth as a result of the flood, posing a health hazard to the people in the affected communities.

He thus called on the government to provide the affected area with special places of convenience as the deluge has overflown all their places of convenience, posing a looming health threat to the residents in the affected communities.

“So we need to curtail it now so that at the end of the day there will not be an outbreak of other diseases in the aftermath of the tidal waves,” he pointed out.

Mr Gakpey touched on the issue of relief items by the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) to the affected areas, which he says is nothing to write home about considering the number of people affected and the paltry items the organization sent to the area.

He criticized the intervention by NADMO, saying “when you say NADMO is broke they say they are not broke. If they are not broke then they should prove to us, if you ask them how many quantities of items they brought they say they brought items, have you seen them mentioning figures?”

Mr Gakpey alleged that NADMO is “doing cover up, I must be frank and truthful to you because we are doing evidence-based politics now, I must be truthful to you, as we speak NADMO has no funds”.

He buttressed his allegation by saying, in the year 2017 to 2020, the Minister of Finance informed the country that Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is exceeding its target yet it could not release funds for the statutory institutions like NADMO, whose interest in the Common Fund is only 3% to effect their mandate in disaster management in the country.

“So why is NADMO saying they are not broke, they don’t have money and I’m telling you on authority, they don’t have money. The relief items they are bringing, it is benevolent people who are bringing it and they are running behind it to actually claim the name,” he charged.

The Keta lawmaker said this in an interview with Johnnie Hughes in a situational report in Keta on Tuesday, November 16, on the back of the tidal waves that has affected the constituency and its environs, destroying properties and rendering more than 7000 people homeless, according to the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO).

“They are getting better gradually day by day but the only two key problems I will highlight is the issue of sanitation and water because the sea is coming from underground, as well as the top. And they use well water and now the water is salty so as a matter of urgency we need to provide them potable pipe borne water, as well as sanitation with special places of convenience,” MP Gakpey appealed.