President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says his administration will continue to support victims of the Akosombo dam spillage disaster.

In his address during Ghana’s 67th Independence Day celebration held at Koforidua in the Eastern region, President Akufo-Addo said “on the day we celebrate our nationhood, we cannot and should not leave out a reference to the physical state of the land that constitutes Ghana.

According to him, citizens cannot claim to love Ghana and treat it with such disdain and total careless abandon, relative to the forests, the rivers, the vegetation, the creatures and the soils that make up Ghana.

“The Almighty has been kind and generous to us, and our beautiful land deserves to be treated with tender loving care. Unless we change how we treat the land, future generations would not recognise the Ghana they read about in the land we bequeath to them. I stay firm in my conviction that extracting the minerals we have been blessed with should not lead to the destruction of the forests and rivers.

He called on the Ghanaians to rededicate themselves to taking care of Ghana.

“I must, at this stage, reaffirm the government’s continued commitment to providing the support for victims of the recent, extensive flooding in downstream communities, in the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta Regions, caused by the spillage of the Akosombo Dam last year – a necessary action which was taken to maintain the dam’s structural integrity.

“As set out in the 2024 budget, Government has set aside two hundred and twenty million cedis (GH¢220 million), of which eighty million cedis (GH¢80 million) has already been released by the Ministry of Finance, to support the ongoing rehabilitation efforts for the affected communities. Government will stop at nothing to restore normalcy to the lives and livelihoods of all affected persons,” he added.