The government through the Housing Ministry has begun a resettlement programme in communities affected by floods caused by spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams along the lower Volta in 2023.

The project would ensure people who had their homes destroyed by the floods, making them inhabitable, are provided befitting housing units.

Per preliminary data gathered, about 5,200 households were destroyed by the floods in 19 districts along the Volta River in the Volta, Eastern, Greater Accra, and Oti Regions.

In the Volta Region, households in some communities in the North, Central, and South Tongu, Anloga, Keta, North and South Dayi Districts, Kpando and Ketu South Municipalities were affected.

Speaking at a stakeholder engagement, the Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa disclosed that nine sites have been identified in the affected areas and cleared in preparation for the construction of housing units.

“We have started the process for resettlement, the sites have been cleared, contractors have come. The [Housing] Minister is here for us to validate the assessment that we have done”, he said.

The Minister-designate for Works and Housing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, led a delegation to engage stakeholders and inspect construction sites in the Central and North Tongu Districts of the Volta Region, on Monday.

He undertook a ceremonial sod cutting at New Bakpa and Mepe sites out of the 9 earmarked for the housing project in the Region, promising the units will be ready in six months.

He explained that due to policy decisions of the government guarding the implementation of the project, the housing units would not be exactly what the victims had before the disaster.

“We must also understand that there would be a policy decision around the resettlement because not everybody will get exactly what they had before the disaster, but we have to be able to bring some.

"May I say, uniformity and basic to the intervention that government has provided. That is why we also need the cooperation and collaboration of the potential beneficiaries”, he said.

Mr Nkrumah explained that the validation of the preliminary data collated would help to ensure the victims who meet the requirements are settled and entreated stakeholders not to engage in any ill-actions that would compromise the resettlement project.

“We also want to ask the potential beneficiaries that all the data that we need for this exercise must have integrity. Now is not the time for people to play friendly games in an attempt to get more than what ought to be made available to them.

So, the National Intelligence Bureau has also made available officers in the various districts who are working with us that the integrity of the data that we are getting on the resettlement is preserved“, he said.

He appealed to traditional authorities to make available lands for the construction of housing units to ensure a successful implementation of the resettlement program.

The Manklalo of the Mepe Traditional Area, Torgbe Korsi Nego VI appealed for judicious use of the lands that will be made available for the housing projects and appealed for the reconstruction of affected road networks.

He entreated the government to undertake extensive prevention works such as constructing and dredging drains and building defence walls among others in the affected areas.