A largely cordial community engagement forum held by the Volta River Authority (VRA) with residents of Agbeve community in the South Tongu District of the Volta Region to find a lasting solution to controversies and misunderstandings surrounding dredging activities have ended inconclusively.

The engagement sought to engage community members and explain to them the dredging activities contract awarded to a company that caused many disagreements between the two parties about three months ago in Agbeve.

Officials from the VRA who tried to explain the process and procedures of the contract to the residents found it very difficult to engage with the residents due to their anger and disappointment.

The residents noted that they were not contacted or had any sort of meeting with them prior to the dredging activities, a situation which was not favourable for them.

Residents alleged that the company that came to dredge had ulterior motives, especially since they were not formally informed about the activities to allow them to prepare.

The issue which is currently in court for which the dredging activities have halted has a lot of issues to be addressed urgently to enable the two parties find common ground.

Residents stated that they are uninterested in the dredging activities because the government has not done any development projects in the Agbeve community, and all projects seen in the community have been sponsored by a native of the town and his family.

The residents also noted that there are numerous development projects currently underway that are being sponsored by the natives, which explains their outrage when they discovered the vessel's activities on the river causing pollution and depriving fishermen of their livelihood.

The residents also complained about excessive noise at night when the vessel was working on the river.

The VRA says what the village witnessed during the initial stage was as a result of a challenge that the vessel encountered when its discharge pipe got choked.

They noted that the project did not include the Angor River, but Amunyo was chosen as the dumping site for the dredged sediments and will discharge wastewater into the Angor River, which is shared by the Amunyo and Agbeve communities.

The experts from the University of Cape Coast (UCC) also indicated that upon their study on the affected areas, the dredger was dredging nine meters deep, but VRA’s consultant, Mr Amekor disputes that and says the contract says not more than six meters.

The experts also admonished the proponents of the project to establish how wide the dredging was to be done and recommended to the VRA to further engage experts to seek alternative biological means of getting rid of the river weeds.

However, the District  office the Ghana Water Company disagreed that the water was not destroyed during the initial dredging activities and that the turbidity level of the water was very bad to the extent that the GWCL could not treat the water and had to shut down and report to its head office.

They also stated that they were happy when the court restrained the activity on the river, adding that it took about two weeks after the court order for the water to restore to its treatable state before they resumed treatment to supply the communities.

The meeting could not establish a common solution but the VRA Officials assured the gathering that they were to report the concerns raised to their superiors and revert and also expressed readiness to be in talks with the experts from the University of Cape Coast to discuss alternatives.