Togo attempts laying claim to Volta Lake

The Republic of Togo has attempt­ed to lay claim to the Volta Lake, the Managing Director of the Ghana Wa­ter Company Limited (GWCL), Dr Clifford Braimah, has revealed.

He said this stems from Gha­na’s uncompromising position in talks over the Sogakofe-Lome Transboundary Water Supply Project.

Dr Braimah made the disclo­sure, when he appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, in Accra, yesterday to respond to audit findings in the Auditor-General’s audit report on public boards, corporations and other statutory institutions, for the period ended December 31, 2021.

According to him, though negotiations between Ghana and Togo on the project have been slow, both parties have been try­ing to come to a common ground before take-off.

“The Togolese want to push all the risk (associated with the proj­ect) on the people of Ghana, but they are taking a greater portion, 85 per cent, of water to be pro­duced. They wanted to take raw water and treat (themselves); and we say we can’t take raw water and pass communities along the line without them being connect­ed,” Dr Braimah said.

He said “We want to treat water at Sogakofe and evacuate to Lome so that people along the line can also benefit.

“They even want to lay claim to the resource itself that we own the Volta together and cannot put charges on them, but we feel that the water that is coming is from Burkina Faso.

“So these are the issues we are battling with. The lawyers are sitting with them and we are getting somewhere. It is very slow but we are hoping that reasoning will prevail.”

The GWCL, Dr Braimah said would negotiate the best deal for Ghana, including the financial consideration, because “Ghana­ians will not forgive us if we sit down and allow that to happen and we don’t get a good deal”.

The Sogakofe-Lome Trans­boundary Water Supply Project is intended to transfer treated water from Sogakofe in the Volta Region to the Togolese capital, Lome, which was estimated to cost US$110 million in 2005.

Meanwhile, he said, govern­ment is making frantic efforts to enhance water production to Northern and Savannah regional capitals, Tamale and Damango, respectively, and their environs.

What is holding the Damango water project, Dr Braimah said, was finance, adding that all neces­sary documents (agreements) for the release of the US$49 million project cost have been signed.

He said that all financial docu­ments covering the project were currently with the Deutsche Bank.

The company, on its own, however, he said was developing an artesian well, which has been drilled in 2015 to treat water for the people of Damango.

He said the plan was to develop a big treatment plan at Yapei on the White Volta and redistribute water to Tamale and Damango.