NPP Never Opposed Construction of Akosombo Dam-Boakye Agyarko Replies President Mahama

The policy advisor and Chairman of the New Patriotic Party's Energy Committee, Mr. Boakye Agyarko has refuted claims by President Mahama that NPP opposed the establishment of Akosombo Dam.

He described President Mahama's claim as propaganda and complete fabrication aimed to court public anger against the NPP ahead of the December 7 polls. “It’s not true that NPP opposed the construction of Akosombo Dam. NPP never opposed it,” he clarified.

President Mahama while addressing Chiefs and people of Western Region during his campaign tour accused the NPP of opposing all the infrastructural developments his government was undertaking just as they did when Dr Kwame Nkrumah was constructing the Akosombo Dam.

But Mr. Boakye Agyarko has disagreed and urged Ghanaians to reject President Mahama’s claim.

Speaking in an exclusive interview on Oman FM’s political analysis programme "Boiling Point" Mr. Agyarko said he is surprised that President Mahama is not abreast with the history of the dam yet went ahead to spew lies.

Mr. Agyarko, who mocked President Mahama's #Changing Lives Transforming Ghana slogan said what President is doing is rather "Deforming Lives and Deforming Ghana" using what he described as a tool of “propaganda and deception.”

Giving a historical background to the Akosombo Dam, Mr. Agyarko noted that feasibility studies of the Dam was done in 1914 and that the project was to kick start afterwards, but delayed until in 1948, when the Watson Commission Report gave a full backing for the construction of the Dam.

He said the Watson Commission’s Report was put before the then Legislative Assembly in 1951 for deliberation but there were disagreements among the members of the Assembly regarding some key areas in the report.

Mr. Agyarko explained that members of the Legislative Assembly became upset and vehemently kicked against Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's deceitful conduct, when they got to know that he had nicodaimously dispatched three officials led by one Mr. Nathaniel Davies to UK and contracted a foreign consultant and authored a document on the Volta River Basin Project in 29th October 1951.

Mr. Agyarko explained that this was after the country then known as Gold Coast had developed a document which he referred to as 'Development of the Volta River Basin had been widely publicized in the media in April 1952 as the document for the project.

"So what everyone got to know was the saw the Development of the Volta River Basin document and nothing else," he stated.

He said the Legislative Assembly got the shock in February 1953, when they detected that Dr Nkrumah's government had brought the UK document on the project for deliberation and raised objection to it, because they felt being deceived by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

Continuing, Mr. Boakye Agyarko indicated that in the said UK document was a proposal for the creation of what he termed as National Preparatory Commission to be headed by a commissioner who will supervise the implementation of the project.

He stated that Dr. J B Danquah realized that it was inappropriate for a foreigner, one Commander Air Robert Jackson to head the said commission and suggested that a team of Ghanaians were put together to supervise the project rather.

Mr. Boakye Agyarko noted that Gold Coast National Commission was formed and the Legislative Assembly proposed that two Ministers and other three people were to be appointed as the membership of the commission, but Dr. Kwame Nkrumah appointed 8 people with himself as the chairman instead of five.

"Immediately there was objection to that by the Legislative Assembly because the proposal was that the members on the committee should be five,” Mr. Agyarko stressed.

As if that did not serve him enough lesson, Dr. Nkrumah according to Mr. Agyarko step down as chairman of the commission and remove three other members in addition and later appointed five people replaced them thus increasing the commission's membership to nine.

Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who accused Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of being deceitful, said at a point one Professor Arthur Louis who was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's economic advisor objected to the approach by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah arguing that it was not going to be in the best interest of the country.

“This is what happened. So UP members were not against the project as President Mahama wants Ghanaians to believe. There are documents available that we can refer to them. It was the Legislative Assembly because of the tricks Dr Nkrumah was playing,” he noted.

Mr. Boakye Agyarko charged President Mahama to broaden his horizon by spending some time to read in order to be abreast with history rather than dwelling on vile propaganda and lies.

Story By: Michael Creg Afful

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