He said the kind of dams that have been constructed under the policy is a waste on the public purse.
The former president, who is on 4-day campaign tour of the Upper West Region labeled the policy as a mere campaign rhetoric the NPP used in 2016 to solicit for votes.
“In 2016 when the NPP came with the promise of one-village one dam, I personally asked what kind of dam are you talking about because there are different kinds of dams but they refused to answer."
"I said I hope it’s not dugouts you’re going to build for us because we don’t need dugouts anymore after we decided to provide clean drinking water for our people most of our communities have small-town water systems or boreholes."
"And so my hope is that the dams you’re talking about are for irrigation purposes so that our young people can engage in dry season farming or gardening. But there was no response.”
Mr Mahama added: “The promises sounded very good and Ghanaians said let’s give them a try. Today the dams that they talked about are dugouts they are not even proper dugouts because most of our dugouts are able to keep water during dry season. These dugouts when the Minority went to inspect them in January-February most of them were dry.
"Even a few cows can drink all the water in the one-village one-dam dugouts. So the one-village one-dam has been a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money. We dug dams under GSOP, they should go and see the dams we dug under GSOP, massive, holding water throughout the year and good for irrigation purposes.”
The NPP ahead of the 2016 general elections promised to construct dams in villages across the northern part of the country to provide enough water for farmers to ensure all year farming, as well as for domestic purposes.