She said the structures were to help reduce post-harvest loses among small holder farmers in the country. She made the statement on Tuesday during a presentation on the topic: "Assessing of the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP)" and "The Assessment of the One Village One Dam Initiative " organized by the Ministry of Information on the fourth edition of the National Policy Summits (NPS), 2018 in Tamale.

The 2018 NPS summit was attended by the Vice president, some Ministers of State, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), Members of Parliament (MPs), Traditional leaders and other stakeholders.

The two day summit was to create a platform for explaining government's policies, plans and programmes, outlining their objectives, scope and specific areas that private capital was required to achieve set goals.

During the presentation, Madam Koomson said the Ministry was established for the implementation of government's priorities, initiatives and the implementation of government's flagship projects through the three development authorities, the Northern Development Authority (NDA), the Middle Belt Development Authority and the Coastal Development Authority.

She said IPEP was a new development approach designed to help eradicate poverty, create jobs, infrastructural developments and address the various forms of inequalities manifesting in the country.

Madam Koomson said it was under IPEP that each of the 275 constituencies would be allocated with 1billion US dollars annually to improve on government's priority areas such as the One Village One Dam , agriculture infrastructure (warehouses and markets), water for all projects, Sanitation projects among others.

She reiterated that the one billion US dollars was not meant for the constituencies to share but to use the money for developmental projects.  Madam Koomson said the Ministry had two approaches for the implementation of the one billion US dollars per constituency, which was the top-down approach including government's priority Initiative and the bottom-up for the constituents infrastructure base assessment needs.

She said the government priority areas consisted of the water system that was the One Village One Dam (1V1D), prefabricated warehouses for the constituencies and the constituents’ infrastructure base assessment for what and where the constituents wanted some of the initiatives to be established.

Madam Koomson said the government's priority projects under IPEP, which were currently ongoing across the country included 1,000 community based water system, 1,000 Ten (10) water  closet institutional toilets with mechanised boreholes, 50 prefabricated warehouses of a 1,000 metric tonnes capacity  and 570 small dams and dugouts and one ambulance per constituency.

Presenting on "The Assessment of the One Village One Dam Initiative ", she said the 1V1D was to help curb the issue of water insecurity in the three regions of the north through the construction of small dams and dugouts to increase access to water for small scale activities, reduce immigration during drought season in the north, all contributing toward poverty eradication.

Madam Koomson said each small dam would have a land area ranging between two to three hectares, maximum depth of the dam would be five meters, length of the environment ranging between 150 to 250 meters, also with water holding capacity of about 30,000 cubic meters tonnes.

During a question and interaction session, some of the participants urged the IPEP to intensify and ensure community participation through the local people to bring about effective management and sustainability of the initiatives implemented and also to help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor in the country.

They also suggested that IPEP should put in place measures to be able to curb unforeseen circumstances like the over flow and spillage of these small dams to help prevent casualties like the one that recently occurred through the Bagre dam spillage.

They urged that Ghanaians should also help change their attitudes towards work to help in the efficient management of the government's projects and enhance productivity in the country.