Members of Tafi Dekpor, a farming community in the Afadzato South District of the Volta region are calling on duty-bearers including the Assembly and Member of Parliament to as a matter of urgency, address the lack of basic amenities in the enclave.

The community cannot boast of any development projects such as potable drinking water, health post and motorable road network to help improve the lives of community members.

Dekpor is part of ten smaller settlement villages with scattered buildings and having a population above 1,000 people with vast acres of arable land for maize, cassava, yam, rice, and palm in large quantities.

Mr Lawson Agblewodea, Acting Headman of the Community, speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), disclosed that the major problems of the community bothered on three dilapidated foot bridges that connected the community to Tafi Atome, deplorable nature of their road, lack of potable drinking water, electricity, and access to education.

'We have no school in the community and our children trek seven kilometres from Dekpor to Atome to access education, leading to failure of children, who reached school going age to begin schooling.'

'We plead with the government to at least build a primary school at Dekpor and urge stakeholders to come and help them.'

Mr Alex Korsi Akpo, Volta Regional President of the International Federation of Women Lawyers GESI Paralegal Group, a Human Rights Advocacy group dedicated to the rights of Women, Children and persons with disabilities brought the plight of the community to the attention of the GNA during their outreach programmes to the area.

Madam Vivian Aborvor, trader, said due to the nature of road network, only tricycles and motorbikes ply the road and as traders, they were mostly delayed, for lack of appropriate means of transport.

She noted that the broken foot bridges also compounded their problems going to the market as well as children going to school, especially when the level of water rises due to heavy downpours with only the brave one's sufficing.

Madam Aborvor said the community also travelled seven kilometres to access healthcare, while recounting how a pregnant woman had to deliver in a tricycle.

Mr Isaac Bidi, farmer, said a borehole constructed by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) for the community had broken down some 10 years ago and had not been repaired making access to potable drinking water for the community difficult.

He noted that lack of water forced the community to rely on streams, which they scooped for home use as well as for palm oil production, fearing public health concerns from frequent use of pesticides and the likes.

Mr Godwin Agbeko Akpadzi, the Assemblyman for Tafi Atome, said the challenges facing the community had persisted for years especially the three-foot bridges had not been fixed adding that the bridges spoilt in 2005, 2009 and 2010 and all calls made fell on deaf ears for repair.

He said the people rely on communal labour to help maintain the nature and structure of the bridges, but continuous downpour rendered their efforts fruitless, while lamenting how students from Dekpor were unable to go to school as a result of rainfalls and rise in water levels of the streams.

Mr Akpadzi said transport owners were exploiting the deplorable road network to charge exorbitant fares adding that charging GH?10.00 for a seven kilometre journey was unacceptable.

He said despite several calls and to bring the situation to the attention of the District Chief Executive and the MP, it failed to yield desired results.

Madam Angela O. Alorwu-Tay, Afadzato South MP, said procurement issues affected works on the bridges and pledged to drill a borehole for the community and also repair the broken one.

She said she would also do more than 20 boreholes across the constituency amounting to over GH?300,000 from the Common Fund from now on 'because water is life.'

Madam Alorwu-Tay said the community had been in this situation for a long time until she came to provide the bridge, which was uncompleted, adding that, 'I will try and work on it for them. It is purely for school children not vehicles.'

The District Chief Executive of Afadzato South, Mr James Etorman Flolu, disclosed to the GNA that the Assembly was mobilising to fix the water situation in the community with the rest to receive attention soon.

Source: Ghana News Agency