The Parliamentary Committee on Food, Agriculture, and Cocoa Affairs is demanding clarity from the government on the financing model for the Pwalugu Irrigation Project before the presentation of the 2027 Budget.

Chairman of the Committee, Dr Godfred Seidu Jasaw, said the government’s commitment to reviving the project must be backed by a clear financing arrangement to ensure work can resume and progress steadily.

He made the remarks on Thursday, October 1, when the Committee visited the project site to assess the progress of work and the state of ongoing activities.

According to Dr Jasaw, the previous government financed the project through the national budget, but the current budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Agriculture has not been sufficient to fund a project of its scale.

“This government has committed, as we have been informed, to ensuring that the project is revived. But again, it is a function of financing,” he said.

He explained that the Committee had observed that the capital expenditure component of the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget for 2025 and 2026 was inadequate to finance the project.

“The last government was financing it from the Government of Ghana budget, and so far 2025-2026, we've observed that the CAPEX component of the budget for the Ministry of Agriculture is unable to finance such a huge project,” Dr Jasaw stated.

He said the Committee was therefore awaiting details of the alternative financing arrangement the government intends to adopt to revive the project.

“We are still exploring how government will come back to us and announce to us what financing model has been agreed, and so these are questions we are interested in asking further,” he added.

Dr Jasaw stressed that clarity on the financing model was particularly important because major irrigation projects require significant time and sustained financial commitment to complete.

He said the committee wants to establish when work on the Pwalugu Irrigation Project can realistically resume and where the funds for its implementation will come from.

“Irrigation projects take time, a long while to develop, and so we must be able to tell where Pwalugu irrigation project starts and where its financing is coming from, particularly before the reading of the budget for 2027,” he said.

The Committee Chairman said members had taken note of the government’s stated commitment to revive the project and would continue to engage the relevant authorities to ensure that the commitment translates into concrete action.

“We want to know those answers as well, but we've heard the commitment, and so we want to go back and then see how we can follow through to be sure that it's secured,” he added.

The Pwalugu Irrigation Dam is considered a major agricultural infrastructure initiative intended to support irrigation-based farming and improve agricultural production in northern Ghana.