GHS201,000 SOCO irrigation projects fail Bolgatanga farmers

Two irrigation projects constructed at a cost of more than GHS201,000 in the Bolgatanga Municipality of Ghana’s Upper East Region have failed to provide sufficient water for farmers to undertake dry-season farming.

The mechanised borehole projects, located in Amogrebisi and Daweo, were constructed in 2024 under the World Bank-funded Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion Project (SOCO).

The projects were intended to provide reliable water for vegetable cultivation, improve household incomes and enable farmers to sustain their livelihoods throughout the year.

However, farmers in the two communities say the facilities have failed to meet their expectations, with some complaining that the water output is too low and cannot reach their farmlands.

"The project is not giving us the water we need for dry-season farming,” said Atubiga Ernest, a 45-year-old farmer in Amogrebisi.

Another farmer, Abisibo Akolgo, said the facility could not deliver water to the areas where farmers cultivate their crops.

"The water from this project cannot even reach where we farm,” he said.

The two projects reportedly cost a combined GHS201,599.50.

Farmers say they were not consulted
Farmers in both communities told The Fourth Estate that they were not adequately consulted during the planning and design of the projects.

Afedo Asoria, a vegetable farmer in Amogrebisi, said proper consultation could have helped identify the needs of farmers and ensured that the project was designed to support commercial farming.

"Nobody consulted us. They only informed us that they were bringing a SOCO irrigation project,” he said.

According to him, a functional irrigation system could have helped families increase their incomes and pay their children's school fees.

In Daweo, farmer Akolgo George said the project had failed to serve its intended purpose.

"They might as well remove it instead of saying they provided irrigation for us when we cannot use it,” he said.

James Alagemah, a farmer and plumber, said residents began raising concerns about the project during construction.

He pointed specifically to the three-quarter-inch outlet pipe, which he said was too small to provide adequate water for irrigation.

"The moment the contractor started work, we realised the project would fail,” he said.

Mr Alagemah said it took between eight and nine hours to fill the tank during the commissioning of the project.

“Imagine 30 to 40 farmers depending on that. How can this support commercial farming?” he questioned.

Documents raise questions over tank sizes

An investigation by The Fourth Estate also uncovered discrepancies between some official documents and what was constructed at the two sites.

Contract documents sighted by the publication indicated that each project was expected to have a 1.5-horsepower pump, irrigation pipelines and a 10,000-litre elevated water tank.

However, documents obtained from the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development referred to 3,500-litre tanks.

At the project sites, the investigation found tanks reportedly capable of holding only 350 litres.

The facilities were also fitted with three-quarter-inch outlet pipes, raising concerns about whether the systems were designed for commercial irrigation or domestic water supply.

Experts question the design
Hydrologist Richard Abaare said the size of the outlet pipes suggested that the systems were more suited to household water supply than commercial irrigation.

He said a three-quarter-inch outlet pipe could indicate the use of pumps with capacities of about one horsepower or even 0.75 horsepower, which he said would generally be associated with domestic applications.

Drilling expert Nyaaba Adongo, meanwhile, said commercial irrigation would normally require larger-capacity pumps, estimating that pumps between 2 and 2.5 horsepower could be more appropriate depending on the system's design and water requirements.

Former MCE raises concerns
The controversy has also drawn criticism from former Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive Rex Asanga, who was in office when the projects were implemented.

Mr Asanga said the Assembly originally conceived the facilities as irrigation projects after farmers identified inadequate water supply as one of the major challenges affecting dry-season farming.

“The whole concept was to tap underground water to support dry-season irrigation,” he said.

However, he said inspections conducted before the projects were completed raised concerns about the design and capacity of the facilities.

“When I inspected the projects before completion, I realised the tanks were far too small,” he said.

Mr Asanga said he subsequently wrote to the Municipal Planning Officer and Municipal Engineer seeking an explanation as to why the facilities appeared to have been designed more like potable water systems than irrigation facilities.

One of the letters seen by The Fourth Estate reportedly stated that the completed facilities appeared to be potable water systems.

Mr Asanga said the situation had affected the credibility of the Assembly because residents felt they had received projects that could not address the problems for which they were intended.

Assembly officials defend the projects

The former Municipal Engineer, Daniel Atchulo, rejected the criticism and questioned whether Mr Asanga had the technical expertise to assess the engineering design.

Mr Atchulo maintained that the contractor executed the projects according to approved specifications. He also said he had not received the query letter Mr Asanga claimed to have written.

The Municipal Planning Officer, Juliana Agyeyomah, declined to directly respond to the concerns contained in the letter, saying she had reservations about it.

She, however, urged stakeholders to focus on finding solutions rather than assigning blame.

The current Municipal Engineer, Owusu Emmanuel Kwaku, confirmed that Assembly contract documents provided for 10,000-litre elevated tanks and 1.5-horsepower pumps.

According to the documents, the mechanisation component of each project including the tank, pump, electrical connections and irrigation pipes was budgeted at GHS40,000.

Other construction-related costs brought the total expenditure on the two projects to GHS201,599.50.

Contractor denies responsibility
The contractor, Osman Murtala of Al-Kahf Company Limited, has denied responsibility for the shortcomings.

He said he executed the project based on the specifications and instructions provided by the Assembly's engineers.

"I delivered exactly what was in the contract documents,” he said.

"I worked under the Assembly engineers. Whatever they instructed me to do was what I did.”

The conflicting accounts have raised questions about who approved the final designs, why the facilities at Amogrebisi and Daweo appear to differ from specifications contained in some official documents, and whether adequate technical supervision was provided during implementation.

For farmers in the two communities, however, the immediate concern remains the same: the projects they expected to support dry-season farming are not providing enough water to make that possible.

They say the failure has denied them valuable farming opportunities, reduced potential household incomes and left them questioning the value of more than GHS201,000 in public funds spent on the two projects.