Dzifa Gomashie, a member of parliament for Ketu South and a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has criticized President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his remarks regarding the spill from the Akosombo Dam.
He claimed that the President’s trip to the Volta Region to offer condolences to the victims was a complete failure.
The lawmaker claimed, in an interview with Class FM in Accra, that the President had disrespected the people of the area rather than provided any workable solutions to the disaster.
“His Excellency, the president, should be ashamed of himself because if you go into your archives, you’ll see that from 2021, the three MPs along the coast of the Volta Region — my good self, the MP for Keta, Hon Kwame Dzudzoli Gakpey and the MP for Anlo, Hon Richard Kwami Sefe, called on the president many times to come to the aid of our people who were inundated with the tidal waves that had hit our communities”.
“In my particular case, in one year, the tidal waves hit me three times”, she revealed, complaining: “On none of those occasions did the president speak about it, tweet about it, or think about it”.
“His ministers came here, made promises and left and till date, there’s no record anywhere, where you’ll find if either the president or his vice president or his ministers came back on that issue of what was happening to us”, Ms. Dzifa Gomashie bemoaned.
She said: “We’re still in that same situation and he still has not spoken about it”.
Focusing on the current catastrophe, Ms. Dzifa Gomashie said: “After weeks of this disaster and planned spillage of excess water from the dam by the VRA, weeks after, the president now gathers courage and comes to us and the first thing he says to us, is not to apologise for the neglect, it’s not to apologise for the ineffective way in which he has handled this disaster in the Volta Region, it was not to apologise to the chiefs and people and the ones who voted for him to get the 50 per cent plus one; he did not apologise to us. He comes and rubs it in our faces that if it was about voting, then he wouldn’t have been here, but you came with your empty hands and you want to come and insult us”.
“I am disgusted, I’m horrified that His Excellency can descend that low”, she condemned.
The president visited Mepe to assess the disaster brought on by the planned release of extra water from the Akosombo and Kpong Dams. He claimed he was there to show his support for the thousands of Volta Region residents who have been forced to flee their homes after flooding destroyed their farms, homes, and other property.
