By Ewoenam Kpodo
Aflao (VR), Aug. 21, GNA – The Keta Municipal Assembly, has sought assistance from the Volta Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to fight activities of illegal sand winners at the municipality’s beaches.
Mr Emmanuel Gemegah, Municipal Chief Executive for Keta in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said this was because the municipal taskforce inaugurated to enforce the ban seemed to be having difficulty carrying out the task.
The Assembly in November last year, inaugurated the taskforce made up of stakeholders including chiefs, Police, Assembly members, the Military, officials from National Intelligence Bureau and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to arrest and prosecute persons engaged in winning sand and its related activity of collecting pebbles from the beaches to deter others from engaging in same.
This followed an earlier ban on the activity with the hope of it serving as an immediate measure to rein in the devastating effects of the sea on people along coastal communities in the Municipality as the EPA and some other experts named beach sand winning as one of the causes of sea erosion.
However, months after the imposition of the ban and the inauguration of the taskforce, there had been reports of people indulging in the activity but under the cover of darkness.
Mr Gemegah said the reinforcement from the REGSEC would help clear doubts of a possible compromise of members of the taskforce and to assist in fashioning out a new strategy to deal with the menace.
He admitted that citizens needed sand and gravel for various purposes for which reason the Assembly was engaging interested companies to dredge the sea to make the resources available to address these needs disclosing, “two companies had so far expressed interest.”
GNA