The road, which will be the first for the stretch, is to facilitate easy access and enable the Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to reaffirm their international land boundaries.
The work, to be undertaken by the 48 Engineers Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces at a cost of GH¢78 million, follows a case the Ghana Boundary Commission (GhBC) made to the Ministry of Roads and Highways for the road to be constructed which would serve as an important boundary between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
The construction is expected to deepen the security of the demarcation lines.
Dollar Power
The Dollar Power community, which shares boundary with an Ivorian community, Tagadi, is home to about 10,000 residents who are mostly engaged in illegal mining, but it is inaccessible by road, except by motorbikes and tricycles.
Such activities, officials said, had led to the removal and tampering of some of the boundary pillars, including teak plantations used to mark the boundary line between the two countries.
Ghana’s inability to deploy security presence in the area, the Daily Graphic gathered, has contributed to the influx of foreign nationals through that corridor from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Niger who are said to be engaged in artisanal mining of the gold deposits in the area.
At a sensitisation forum organised by the commission, in partnership with relevant stakeholders such as the Minerals and Forestry commissions as well as the Ghana Geological Survey Authority, the National Coordinator of the Ghana Boundary Commission, Major General Dr Emmanuel Kotia, stated that the 48 Engineers Regiment were mobilising to begin the feeder road project which would facilitate regular inspection of the international boundary line and also allow security agencies to undertake regular patrols within the area to protect the international borders..
General Kotia pointed out that the assessment of the commission, so far, had shown grave infractions, including the degradation of an estimated 70 hectares of land, the adverse impact of illegal mining activities on the environment, general insecurity in the Dollar Power enclave due to the absence of security personnel and state actors.
“The roads, therefore, will enhance development in the areas and open them for effective security and border management as well as facilitate our reaffirmation processes,” Gen. Kotia stated.
While appealing to the residents of the communities along the line to cooperate with the commission and its Ivorian partners to go through the reaffirmation processes, Gen. Kotia also encouraged them to be cognizant of the remaining border pillars and ensure that their activities did not further affect them.
Other agencies
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer-in-charge of Small Scale and Industrial Minerals of the Minerals Commission, Samuel Tika, in his remarks, expressed worry about the haphazard manner in which the gold deposits in the area were being mined.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Nyadia Sulemana Nelson, for his part, also expressed worry about illegal logging taking place within the catchment area.
That, he said, had affected the ecology of the Bui National Park.
The commission, Mr. Nelson said, would need to undertake re-zoning exercise that would allow for the identification of where the mining could take place and where it should not.
The rezoning would create a buffer that could ward off the community from encroaching further to the core areas of the Bui National Park and the Bui Dam.
Local authority
The District Chief Executive for Bole, Alele Veronica Heming, for her part, said the Bui Dam was being polluted by the activities of the illegal miners and expressed the hope that National Security would step in to ward off activities of the miners.
The Sindiwura, Mahama Awudu Abot, who has the traditional oversight over the area, said apart from the local watchdog community in place, residents had been at the mercy of alleged Ivorian rebels who previously controlled the area.
