In Their Own Words: Voices of Affected People

8/9/2019 In Their Own Words: Voices of Affected People

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Bui Dam, Ghana

By Clement Otu-Tei

In Their Own Words:Voices of Affected People


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Ghana suffers from erratic electricity supply due to itsover-reliance on hydropower from large dams.

Yet with Chinas help, it is now building another dam one that is drowning part of a national park,

villages and fishing grounds.

Photo: Ghanas Akosombo reservoir, seen from space. When it was built in the 1960s it flooded

4% of Ghanas landmass.


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The Bui National Park is home to 350-400 rare blackhippopotami, antelopes, monkeys, birds, rare lizards, and otherwildlife. More than half the park (their habitat) will be flooded by

Bui Dam. This means that most of the wildlife the park wascreated to protect is once again vulnerable to hunters.

They were sacred to our ancestors, they became ourtotem. Dont let them vanish from our forests

Photo: Courtesy Edmond Akoto-Danso (iwmi, Accra


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The dam is floodingout some 2,500people. Affectedvillagers are mostlysubsistence farmersand fishers.


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Clement Otu-Tei is from Ghana. He wrote his Mastersthesis on resettlement issues at the Bui Dam. Clementspent many weeks in the area talking to communities

that have already been resettled and some that havenot yet been moved.

Here are some of the stories he heard.


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They said they will move us but we dont know when and where.

The project is going very fast, but they could not tell us when andwhere they will resettle us. They may have good plans for us butwe have sleepless nights worrying about where they will resettleus. They need to discuss their plans with us. Maybe that willreduce our fears.


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I dont know how long it would take to grow and eat freshcoconuts again. I will miss my home.


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How can we take care of our families, pay for the education ofour children in secondary school if they stop us from fishing?Stopping us from fishing is like taking our food out of my mouth.


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We hope our childrenwill have good schoolsat the new settlement.


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What happened to thepeople affected by

Akosombo dam scaresme. I feel like crying formy grandchildren,because this dam willtake away all we have

worked hard to keep forour future generations. Itis like uprooting a bigtree and trying to replantit. You cannot guarantee

that it will survive. Weare going to start allover again; getting toknow the land, thepeople, the culture.


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Would they settle us near the river?

Can I continue to fish? I need to beresettled near the river where I can gofishing because that is the only work Ihave done all my life.


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The Chinese contractors burnt my cashew farm.They said they will compensate us but I cannotharvest cashew this year to take care of my family.


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Whatever they give me cannot compensate for mylife here in this village. We understand and acceptthat we have to move. We cannot refuse to moveeven though we are not happy. All we ask is that,

whatever they do, they should not make our livesmiserable. We dont want to be like the people ofAkosombo 30 or 40 years from now.

I am an old lady; I am not fighting for myself. It is

our children and grand-children we fighting for.


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Life here is good but our husbands can no longer go

fishing. That is our major problem.

I had 3 rooms at my village but they gave me only twosmall rooms here. Now we cannot fit in the room so some ofmy children sleep in the kitchen.

Stories of Already Resettled Villagers


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I am a fisherman and I cannot stop fishing.We sneak to the dam site to make and set fish traps.


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They closed our main access route so wecannot visit our relatives who live across the

river or go to the market across the river.


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They are going to construct a hand-pump well for us.

Our new settlement is too far from the river and that is bad for meas a fisherman.


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They built a 3 classroom block for our day nursery schooland they a building a community center for us

They built a 3-classroom block for our nursery school and theyare building a community center for us.


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We are not against the dam. We want it because

there are benefits for the whole nation. However,we dont want to be victims of a developmentproject. Most of my people are fishermen, sosome form of extensive vocational training, initial

capital, and equipment would be a more reliablealternative livelihood. This will help reduce thenegative effects of the dam on my people.

Togbi E. Kpakpa, Chief of Bator Akanyakrom


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China is the biggest builder of large dams inAfrica. Chinas African dams too often suffer frompoor attention to social and environmentalimpacts, and from lack of transparency.

International Rivers is calling on Chinese dambuilders to strengthen the social andenvironmental standards in their projects.

More information: www.internationalrivers.org

In Their Own Words: Voices of Affected People

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