Residents of Tadzewu in the Ketu North Municipality of the Volta Region can now heave a sigh of relief.
This follows Duamenefa Foundations’ Social Intervention Programme on Fafaa FM that keenly followed the community’s water issue after the Assemblyman for the area, Hon. Patrick Melinawo Attipoe petitioned the Social Intervention crew to investigate and intervene to unravel the circumstances surrounding the refusal of the consultant, EDCON LTD to relinquish management of the project to the community.
The Tadzewu Community Water Project was awarded by the Ketu North Municipal Assembly in 2018 to EDCON LTD as project consultants with completion deadline fixed for the same year. But due to some inexplicable reasons, the consultant could not hand over the Japanese Counter Value Funded Project [which was completed for over two years from the date it was awarded], instead, the consultant Mr. Eddy Avornyo was allegedly managing the water through his personally appointed staff. These staffs were directly in charge of revenue collection and technical management and supply systems to the community.
The petition dated 2nd April, 2022 and signed by the assembly member for the area and several other signatories, stated among other things that the consulting firm EDCON LTD had hijacked the project claiming that management of the project was under their control and that they were not accountable to any authority be it the assembly or any institution in the management of the completed project.
The petition also claimed that the lead consultant on the project one Edward Avornyo and his cousin Michael Avornyo together with his (the consultant’s) younger brother Torgbi Eyaa II who is the ‘Dufia’ of Tadzewu had on several occasions rebuffed letters written to them from the outfit of the Ketu North Municipal Chief Executive, Hon. Anthony Avorgbedor, summoning them to meetings with the assembly to deliberate on how to resolve the issue.
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It said, further efforts by the assembly to get the assembly member for the area to constitute a Community Water Management Board (CWMB) pending the takeover of the project were also thwarted by Torgbi Eyaa II who the petition says claimed to have strangely made some investments towards the execution of the project, but his constant refusal to meet with the assembly and the attitude of the consultant and his cohorts on the issue was what baffled the community, necessitating the petition.
The timely intervention of Fafaa 100. 3 Fm’s Social Intervention crew led by the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Ketaman Evortepe through their undercover investigation and interrogations of all parties mentioned above has brought an amicable resolution to the four-year crisis.
The consultant reconciled his differences with the Municipal Assembly and handed over the project and its management through the MCE. Hon. Anthony Avorgbedor to the community. An interim management committee under the supervision of the Assemblyman Hon. Attipoe was inaugurated.
The people of Tadzewu expressed profound gratitude to Fafaa 100.3 Fm for the timely intervention and the positive results through its Duamenefa social intervention program.
Source: Duamenefa Foundation