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14.03.2007 General News

Chief, People Of Anlo Beach Threaten Not To Vote

14.03.2007 LISTEN
By Daily Graphic

The Chief and people of Anlo Beach in the Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SAEMA) have threatened not to take part in any future elections.

This is because the only time they got any attention was the period leading to elections after which they were abandoned and left to their fate.

The community, which has a population of about 6,000 with fishing and farming as their main occupations lacks facilities such as water, electricity and access roads, a situation which has made life very unbearable.

To get to town, members of the community have to use a canoe to undertake the perilous journey or have to go through Beposo, which takes about two hours due to the bad nature of the road.

The residents said teachers sometimes abandoned the classrooms to cross the lagoon in canoes from the Anlo-Beach to Shama, a nearby town, to fetch water.

When the Daily Graphic visited the community, it noticed that only two hand-dug wells served them. The water from the wells tasted salty.

The people claimed to have migrated from various parts of the Volta Region more than a century ago.

The Chief of the town, Togbe Tekplor Garikor I, said they had made several appeals to the authorities to provide them with potable water, at least, and to rehabilitate the road linking the community to Beposo but this had not yielded any results.

He said his people were now very much aggrieved and no amount of words from the politicians would make them change their minds not to vote.

“This time, no water, no electricity and road, no vote,” they insisted, saying that they had procured their own electricity poles and were waiting for them to be erected to give them some ray of hope that they might get light soon”.

Togbe Tekplor said while the poles were waiting to be erected, the politicians would come and add a few and make all the empty promises to raise their hopes only to abandon them after the elections.

“This time round we will not listen to any politician,” he said.

He said in the past any time they decided to boycott elections, various politicians would come and assure them that things would change but after obtaining their votes they went away without fulfilling any of the promises.

“My people are very tired of crossing the dangerous lagoon daily for water and it is about time that they received attention so we can retain our teachers to teach our children,” he said.

“How can we see electricity, good roads, as well as good drinking water around us, but not have them when we also contribute our quota to the economy and national development,” he queried.

The Headmaster of the Anlo Beach Primary and JSS, Mr Kwaku Adobor, described the situation as very bad and added that teachers had to choose between writing lesson notes or crossing the lagoon to search for potable water.

He said the lack of electricity in the town seriously affected teaching and learning, as well as the social life of the people.

Mr Kwaku Adobor said teachers refused posting to the area because of the problems, and that some of them stayed for just six months and left.

“Those of us who have stayed here for four or five years are here because of our love for the job. As I speak, teachers have left the classroom and are looking for canoe to cross the lagoon to Shama to fetch water,” he said.

Story by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu

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