Mr Kobla Mensah Woyome, Member of Parliament for South Tongu on Thursday called on government to research into how to restore the livelihoods of the people living along the Lower Volta River.
He also called for an establishment of an authority to manage the effects of the river downstream as was the case for upstream, saying river fishing, creek fishing and clam (Oyster) picking, had been badly hit.
Mr Woyome made the call on the floor of Parliament in a statement he issued to the effect that the impoundment of the river at the two sites, Akosombo and Kpong caused an alteration of the existing ecological and biophysical processes of the river basin in many ways.
He said the impoundment resulted in a slow down of the flow of the river, upstream and downstream, flooding of cultivated fields, siltation of the river and the estuary, extinction of certain fish stock and other aquatic life.
Mr Woyome said another problem associated with the colonization of weeds in the main stream of the Lower Volta Basin or downstream, was the reduction in shrimp population that served as a source of food and livelihood for the fringe communities and which supported the economies of these rural communities and crop yield also declined substantially.
He said creek agriculture diminished because the natural flooding no longer left rich alluvial deposits that improved soil fertility in the overlying upland areas, adding food production fell due to reduced crop-yields from the uplands.
He said there was loss of income due to the collapse of the rural economies which brought about very intense poverty among the inhabitants and triggered a breakdown of cultural and social values leading to diseases to the extent of becoming a common phenomenon in these communities.
Mr Woyome noted that the combined power output of the two dams sustained the nation's domestic and industrial power needs to date.
The construction of the Akosombo dam led to a rapid expansion of industrialization in the country, particularly in the major cities such as Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi.
By 1981, this new demand necessitated the construction of another dam, a smaller dam at Kpong downstream of the Akosombo Dam.