Stop winning sand in Keta for export — Former Buem MP

Former Member of Parliament for Buem constituency in the Volta Region, Daniel Kosi Ashiamah has blamed the perennial tidal waves disaster on Local Government Authorities winning sand along the coastal lines of the Volta region as a source of raising Internally Generated Funds (IGF).

He said District Assemblies could have stopped the sand winning due to the long occurrence of tidal waves in the low-lying area.

“But they failed to know the harmful effects of their actions in the coming days,” he said.

All the people along the coastal belt, he noted need education on the menace of sand winning to desist from the act.

“Such reminders to the people [from] generation to generation is very crucial. All the chiefs and others must have perhaps quarterly meetings about their environment and how it should be protected. And some people also mention the DCE as the one who sent them, knowing that in those areas, the mentioning of the DCE stops everyone from probing further because he is the government.

“These are the things we need to take good care of because we are the ones who will be affected, it should not be about the money to get today,” he told Ekuorba Gyasi on Atinka Television’s ‘Ghana Nie’ program.

The former Buem MP wondered why some persons in Togo would be buying sand from Ghana when their capital town, Lome, also has coastal lines.

“So it means their laws, their monitoring is [more] effective than ours, so that is what we should watch,” he pointed.

It has emerged that some people in the Volta Region have been wining sand along the coastal lines for export to neighbouring Togo and Burkina Faso.

These unfortunate acts, according to sources are sometimes perpetrated by persons who use the names of influential or powerful personalities within the various communities to win the sand.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the region also corroborated the report of sand winning but said those in the business of it were registered.