By: Fred Yaw Sarpong- Daily Express
The Chief and people of Anokyi, a community located near Atuabo Gas in the Elembele District of the Western Region are calling for developmental projects in the community.
The Chief, Nana Avo Blay told Daily Express that the community lacks developmental projects and other employable ventures, which will offer the people in the area, especially the young ones job to do.
The people in the community are mainly farmers and fisher folks. However, Nana Avo Blay said where the Atuabo Gas is located has taken a large portion of their farm lands, and this has really affected the living standards of the people.
?This has resulted in a large number of our people not having anything to do. Even though compensation was made to those farmers by the Ghana National Gas Company, the compensation to the farmers was not done according to the number of crops on the lands. So we did not gain as far as our lands and crops are concerned,? Nana Avo Blay stated.
The Daily Express together with other financial journalists visited the Western Region to find out how developments in the area have been, after the establishment of the Atuabo Gas and the works of Jubilee Field. The trip was sponsored by GIZ/SECO and IFEJ.
The team visited Ghana National Gas Company, Quantum Facility, Essikado, Abuesi, Takoradi Port and other areas in the region.
Nana Avo Blay lamented that apart from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant which had caused some farmers unable to farm again, the Jubilee Field has also created difficulties for them.
?We have been asked not to fish around certain perimeters on the sea, especially to the area of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessels or FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, and also around the gas pipeline that links FPSO and Atuabo Gas Processing Plant,? said the Chief.
He stated that these instructions from the Jubilee Partners and the Ghana National Gas Company have affected them a lot. ?A few of our people who are able to go fishing end up coming home with nothing. They end up pulling out sea weeds more than fish they wanted,? he complained.
?We are lacking a lot of developmental projects in this area. Our people do not have works to do. We are also lacking other social amenities such as recreation centers and others. Our public toilet is old and the new one constructed by someone is still locked out. We travel far for water,? the people complained.
Anokyi is about 110 or 130 kilometers from Takoradi. It has a population of a little over 1000 inhabitants. They are mainly into coconut farming, fishing, rubber plantation, cassava and maize farming.
