Bazua (U/E), Aug 17, GNA - The Volta River Authority (VRA)has begun a programme to educate people living and farming near banks of the Volta River in the Upper East Region.

The flood plains of the river in the region are expected to be flooded when Burkina Faso opens its Bagre Dam to spill excess water. Already, the Information Services Department and radio stations in the region are making announcements to inform communities to evacuate the areas likely to suffer the most.

Alhaji Mohammed Erzuah Siam, Community Relations Officer of VRA who led a team of personnel from the authority on the campaign, told the people that the Bagre Dam would officially be opened on August 21.

He warned people not to attempt crossing the river to the other side, send herds of cattle close to the river or go to their farms close to river on the stated date because the force of the river could sweep them away.

Alhaji Siam said last year adequate preparations were not made towards the floods and many lives and property including livestock were lost and urged the communities to take the advice being given by the VRA seriously so as to avoid a repetition of the hardships suffered last year.

The communities visited included Bazua which usually is the first community to suffer effects of the floods, Sapeliga, Binduri and surrounding communities.

The rest are Nafgolika, Vakop, Gogo and Sarka. He said the continuous reliance on the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) was not a solution to the problem.

At Bazua for instance some aggrieved members of the community were bitter because they said last year when they heard the announcement that there would be flooding as a result of the opening of the dam they sent people on bicycles to Bagre to see things for themselves.

They said they saw white men fishing and concluded that the whites deliberately blocked the water in the Volta River to do fishing and when they could not contain it they spilled it out.

They blamed government for not doing anything about the problem and said last year's floods rendered life worthless as they virtually had no food to live.

They said they had been working on their farms for years prior to the construction of the Bagre Dam without any major hindrance and that the continuous deprivation of their right to life is worrying.

They said it was a moral duty for government to intervene to bring lasting solution to the flooding because they could not continue to suffer this fate that they were not responsible for.

At Natinga the people said they continued to farm near the banks of the river because they could not afford the cost of fertilizers and that farmlands there were fertile and did not require fertilizers to get good yields.

They said they were ready to discontinue farming near the banks of the river on condition that they could afford to buy fertilizers for their farms.

Last year's floods killed several people, washed away livestock, collapsed houses and destroyed several bridges.

The government declared the region a disaster area and voted about 50 million new Ghana cedis towards cushioning the plight of the victims in the three northern regions.