Work on the second phase of the Blekusu Sea Defence project in the Volta Region is progressing steadily after the contractors mobilised to the site about four months ago.
The project is aimed at reclaiming land and protecting shorelines against devastating sea erosion in the Ketu South Municipality.
Spanning eight kilometres from Blekusu to Adina, the project will place 37 groynes perpendicular to the coastal communities to trap sand and create a buffer belt to protect the shorelines, roads, structures, electrical poles and houses.
The project is being executed by Amandi Holdings, which is pre-financing the GH¢919 million project.
Work on the project started in July, this year, and is expected to be completed in July 2028.
Visit
This came to light when the Select Committee of Works and Housing paid a working visit to the project sites and communities affected by sea erosion yesterday.
The committee members visited communities, including Agavedzi, Adina, Amutinu and Sallakope, to inspect the progress of work on the project and learn at first-hand challenges facing its speedy execution.
The second phase follows the successful completion of the first phase of the project, which started in 2015 and was completed in 2018. Though the second phase was scheduled to continue immediately, it was abandoned when power changed.
During the visit, the committee, led by its Chairperson, Vincent Oppong Asamoah, came face to face with the widespread devastation caused by sea erosion to houses, roads, schools and power lines in the coastal communities from Agavedzi to Amutinu and Sallakope.
At Sallakope, the only basic school in the area, Amutinu Sallakope MA School, had its JHS1 to JHS3 classrooms, as well as that of the kindergarten block, destroyed entirely by sea erosion, with the remaining structures being described as “a death trap” by the school authorities.
The committee members toured sections of cemeteries in the coastal communities that had been destroyed or completely washed away by the sea.
Briefing the committee members after touring the project site and the communities, the Project Director of Amandi, Ehud Deri, said at the end of the project, there would be tens of metres of a buffer belt to protect roads and the structures in the communities.
In his view, if reclamation measures had been put in place earlier, many structures in the communities could have been saved.
“All the community has to do is to look at phase one and draw the conclusion since the work speaks for itself,” he said.
He gave an assurance that the company would work hard to meet the completion deadline of July 2028.
The committee chairman said after the completion of the first phase of the project in July 2018, the government should have started the second phase, but did not do so, causing harm to the communities.
Mr Asamoah, however, expressed appreciation for the current government’s initiative to embark on the second phase of the project.
Investment opportunities
Given the huge impact sea erosion had caused in the communities, Mr Asamoah urged the contractors to reconstruct some of the damaged schools as part of their corporate social responsibility.
With a long stretch of beautiful shorelines, he extended an invitation to investors to take advantage of the pristine shorelines in the areas, which were just a few kilometres’ drive from Accra.
He expressed satisfaction at the speed of the work and urged the government to honour its commitment to the Blekusu Sea Defence project.
