The construction of the much-talk-about Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam and the Tomato Factory projects will help address the pressing economic issues hampering the people in Upper East and the North of the country as a whole.
The projects will not only offer employment opportunities for the rural folks who travel down South for non-existent greener pastures, but will contribute significantly to the socio-economic development of the country.
The General Secretary for the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), Ghana, Morgan Ayawine, made this call at the Upper East Regional Conference held in the regional capital Bolgatanga last Friday.
The conference was held to precede the 12th Quadrennial Delegates’ Conference, which according to the General Secretary would serve as a forum to take stock and plan the region’s activities, conduct elections for the youth, women and the Regional Council, and, as well as adopt resolutions for the forthcoming of all important event.
Ex-President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, cut the sod for the construction of the $993 million project in November, 2019.
The construction of the Multipurpose Dam project was to address three critical issues: Irrigation, flood control and hydropower generation, as indicated by the previous government in the inauguration ceremony held at the proposed project at Pwalugu in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
More than 900 households, comprising 4,228 people from 22 communities in the main reservoir were going to be displaced to pave way for the project.
Mr Ayawine, in his keynote address at the conference, pleaded with the current government to consider as paramount the construction of the two major projects at Pwalugu-the Multipurpose Dam and Tomato Factory.
“So many industries and businesses have been left to go fallow. This is a serious concern of the Union, as it is exacerbating the already precarious unemployment situation in the country,” he lamented.
The General Secretary, also an indigenes of the region, said it was lamentable that the Pwalugu Tomato Factory in the region had been abandoned for the past years, while scores of indigenes were wallowing in poverty.
On that score, he noted that for the factory to realise its economic prospects and fulfil the purpose for which it was established, there was the need for the government to reactivate it to create the needed employment avenues for the teeming unemployed youth.
According to him, it would also save the country the foreign exchange used in the importation of tomatoes into the country.
On the issue of the abandoned construction of the multipurpose dam at Pwalugu, he indicated that re-awarding of the contract and seeing to its completion would aid improve agriculture, “so it is obvious its economic benefits would be enormous.”
Furthermore, Mr Ayawine also used the platform to admonish delegates to actively participate in all deliberations and take decisions to reflect the aims and objectives of the organisation.
He called for stronger relationship between union and management, stating that every business endeavour had an in-built system of democracy, since it took two separate entities, such as labour and employer, to make it operational and profitable which were the two main objectives of business.
Again, he said considering the pressing economic concerns, government, employers and labour must prioritise addressing labour-related issues timely to forestall industrial actions, as productivity gravely suffered when there was no peace and union within the arena of labour relations.
FROM FRANCIS DABRE DABANG, BOLGATANGA
