Residents of Mepe-Avetakpo, a farming endowed community in the Ho West District of Ghana’s Volta Region, have threatened to secede from
the district to mother constituency–North Tongu District due to alleged neglect by their Member of Parliament (MP), Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, and the Ho West District Assembly.
Mepe-Avetakpo is located in the Ho West District. While it lies within this district, traditionally the Avetakpo community was founded by the native inhabitants of Mepe.
The residents lamented that their MP and Ho West District Assembly have realized that there are from Mepe Traditional Area in the North Tongu District to settle on the land, hence the reason for their neglect of essential social services.
Their long age neglect, the residents stressed has informed their current decision to appeal to President Dramani Mahama to help them to secede from the Ho West constituency or the district to North Tongu Constituency when the limited registration period opens in May.
The community cites a lack of social services and infrastructure development, including no clinic or healthcare facilities, poor road network, no electricity, and limited access to clean drinking water.
For many years now , access to clean drinking water has remained a major challenge in Avetakpo. With no alternative, residents are compelled to fetch water from unclean sources shared with animals.
The residents complained bitterly that they have continued to battle a worsening water crisis, forcing them to rely on contaminated streams also used by livestock.
“We suffered for long. We used to fetch from a stream where cattle, goats and other animals drank. These animals even defecate inside the streams.
“We used to treat the water with ash before we could drink it. The distance from the community to the stream is far, which makes it stressful to fetch water. Getting water to cook is hard, talk less of bathing,” they stated.
According to them, the problem of water crisis persists even during the rainy season, saying that “Even in the rainy season, we don’t get clean water to drink.
They maintained that the lack of access to potable water has increased the burden on women and children, who often walk long distances to fetch water from unsafe sources.
They indicated that situation has also raised concerns about waterborne diseases and other health risks, sayings that recently some residents were affected with communicable skin disease.
They lamented that they were neglected of social amenities dating back from 1975 when the Ghana government demarcated the land for the Kalakpa Forest Range reserve.
Speaking in an interview with some senior journalists during a recent tour to Avetakpo to ascertain the situation, the youths and elders in the area explained that some chiefs and members of the community have approached their MP and top officials of the Assembly, to inform them about the long age social and infrastructure challenges, but no action has been taken.
During a tour of several areas of the community, the journalists observed some packed electricity poles intended to provide the community with electricity that had been abandoned for years.
On the other hand, a discovered ground water source that provides the community with drinking water, and the roads leading to the community are in extremely poor condition, besides several stalled community CHPS compound projects started by the MP
The residents disclosed that they had been praying for at least those development projects to be completed on their land for a very long time.
They observed that, despite the roughly seven communities in that area of the Ho West district having little development, politicians never spare them during election campaigns and, once they have the public’s support, neglect to carry out their development pledges.
The residents indicated that there is no proper road network leading to Avetakpo since its formation and that when its rains the residents have to swim or struggle through running water to get to Mepe-Avetakpo, the scary situation which is posting health risk to their lives.
They complained that oftentimes, in rural Mepe-Avetakpo, it is common for residents to transport farm produce on their heads to walk about ten to eleven hours to the market centres either in Ho, Mafi Kumase,and Juapong.
To held avoid this traditional practice in the area, the residents stressed the need for the current government under President Dramani Mahama to, immediately come to their aid to Invest in improved transportation infrastructure, supporting local businesses that can transport goods, or developing innovative solutions like lightweight carriers or wheeled carts.
They, therefore, appealed to the government of President John Dramani Mahama for improved conditions and assistance in providing these essential services.
The community members claim that all attempts to attract development projects into the Avetakpo township through the Ho West District District Assembly and Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, have failed, leaving the community in desperate or dire need of social amenities.
They expressed unhappiness about the way and manner the MP, Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah and Ho West District Assembly aren’t lobbying to bring the social and infrastructure development to the community.
“We would only spot our MP, Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah at Avetakpo enclave during the political campaign seasons or periods,” they stated, threatening to boycott voting in the 2028 general elections.
“Our MP Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah would only come here–Avetakpo to campaign
for votes and after he gets our votes to win the parliamentary seat, he eventually wouldn’t step
his foot at Mepe-Avetakpo again until another election campaigns season come.
“Is it the best ways Honourable Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah who is our political leader in Parliament should act. The continuous selective justice and discrimination against us, we think that it is time these practices must stopped in the area,” the residents stated.
For example, they asserted that the Mepe Avetakpo lacks basic services that other communities in the Ho West District Assembly enjoy. This is leading to a sense of being overlooked and calls for the government to address the issue.
According to the residents, since in 1975, with a huge population of people living in the area, Mepe-Avetakpo which is known for farming hasn’t seen significant changes.
They stressed that the increasing situation of the lack of proper socio-economic development in Mepe-Avetakpo is evidence that the farming endowed community has been neglected by the central government, MP and Ho West District Assembly.
“The government is not telling the settlers to leave the area, government is not even harassing the residents, but the central government through Ho West District Assembly and MP has just kept quite for bringing social and infrastructure development to Avetakpo enclave,” the residents lamented.
They pointed out that the Ho West District Assembly has neglected the people at Avetakpo making the collapsed of the only basic school in the area, bringing serious educational challenges to the children in the area.
They stated that many children of school going age are still at home because the school is no longer functioning effectively how it used to be previously.
They pointed out that it was no teachers factor which has caused the earlier collapsed of the school in the area.
The blamed the Ho West Education Directorate of the Ghana Education Service for negligence over the collapsed of Mepe-Avetakpo basic primary school.
On the issue of collapsed basic primary school, they stated that the people in Avetakpo realised that they should reconstruct their collapsed basic primary school and decided to raise funds themselves for the project.
According to them, there was a recent rainstorm in the area which caused significant damage, including ripping off roofing sheets from many buildings.
This event has resulted in the destruction of roofing materials and potential damage to the interiors of buildings.
After the unfortunate disaster, they stated that they have invited some media houses to come to the community to carry out the stories on the incident.
They asserted that after the news items were published, the USA Embassy seen the dire need
of the community and came in to allocate some funds to support the community members to complete the construction of the three-unit classroom block.
Interestingly, they indicated that in two years
ago after the school was commissioned by US Embassy and handed over to the community to use, the Ho West Education Directorate of Ghana Education Service (GES) has refused to transfer teachers to the school.
Following this development, they mentioned that some key community stakeholders or leaders have followed up with the teahers posting issue to Ho West Education Directorate of GES and pleaded with them to transfer teachers to newly built school in Avetakpo.
Finally, they noted that four months ago one teacher has been posted to the school by GES and the school is not functioning properly like the way it was previously before it has collapsed.
“The people at Avetakpo have to buy a motorbike for the said teacher. We are telling President John Dramani Mahama to come to our aid because
we do almost everything ourselves in the area.
Mepe Avetakpor has not connected to
national electricity grid
For the provision of the electricity power, they further complained bitterly about the lack of electricity in the area.
“It is a very sad that Avetakpo which has a huge population of people living in the area hasn’t yet
been connected to the national electricity grid.
They complained that the government has connected all the satellite rural communities to the national electricity grid in the Ho West District except Avetakpo alone which has not gotten it share.
On the issue of health, the people stated that the Ho West Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has failed the people of Avetakpo.
He noted that the only CHPS compound built by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ho West, Hon. Emmanuel Kwesi Bedzra, has been abandoned for 16 years now in bush.
According to them, the recent out break of communicable disease epidemic for which the health officials of the district told the people in the area to buy their only medicines for treatment was a very clear evidence to show that the Ho West District has failed the people in the area.
“We have been neglected for so long with basic social amenities or services because the top officials of Ho West District think that traditionally we the settlers at Avetakpo are coming from Mepe Traditional Area in the North Tongu District and not from Ho West District,” the residents revealed to the journalists.
According to the residents, the neglect meted out to them by their MP, government and Ho West District Assembly was a calculated system, ostensibly to deprive the people living at Avetakpo enclave to leave.
“So the attitude is like, you are secretly killing someone slowly without letting the person to know and that what is happening to us here in Avetakpo,” the residents cried out.
