Time for pulling down of structures on water way – Council of State member
A member of Council of State Rev. Amoo Darko on Tuesday said time was now to pull down structures on waterway without fear of been victimized during election to help solve the perennial flooding.
‘Areas such as Chorkor, Dansoman and Sukura all suburbs of Accra which had unauthorized structure pulled down did not experience much flooding and noted that human lives were precious and the right thing should be done to avoid situation where each time there is flooding stakeholders do not go around sympathing as has become the norm’.
Speaking at an emergency meeting held by disaster management experts organized by National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) with all stakeholders Rev. Amoo-Darku who is also the chairman of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction said ‘there is the need for a multi-sectoral approach to find solutions to floods in the country especially Accra.
In a presentation of Accra floods, Mr. Wise Ametefe, Deputy Director of Hydrological Services Department who gave an overview of how the nine basis in Accra which have its banks interreacted and blocked are the main causes of floods in Accra.
He mentioned some of the basins as Lower Basin of Densu river , the Lafa basin, the Chemu and the Odwa basin.eacted and blocked are the main causes of floods in Accra.
Mr Ametefe attributed rapid changes in land use pattern due to urbanization, undersize hydraulic structures which could not take the volume of water, inadequate engineering designs and lack of complete coordination between stakeholders in charge of planning and implementation sectors.
He mentioned the construction of more storm drains, deepening and widening of rearth channels to receive more water, periodic maintenance of drainage structures and retention of flood water as some of the solution to mitigate floods.
Stakeholders at the meeting recommended a complete coordination implementing agencies in the drainage planning , focusing on a combined used of channelization and retention of floods reservoirs and the need to increase and harvest rain water in all residential areas as well as discourage paving in residential development to enable water find it course.
They noted that district assemblies had a role to play in the mitigation of flood by enforcing bylaws and regulation noting that development should be a bottom up approach and not the other way round.
National Coordinator of NADMO, Mr kofi Porturphy said focus should be on disaster risk reduction and prevention and noted that had beautiful disaster management ideas but lack of funding to implement them was a major obstacle.
He said NADMO would have a meeting with donor partners on the way forward and expressed the hope that the meeting would be successful.
Unfortunately Ministers and Municipal Chief executives and other representatives of District Assemblies who were invited to dialogue on the way forward failed to attend the meeting due to a another meeting elsewhere. Said Ghana has great plans for disaster management but lack the funing to put these plans into action to address the flooding problems in the country
Source: GNA
It is better all houses on water ways must be pull down to allow free flow of drain waters to avoid havok. Again, the city authorities must not sit down for a structure to be elected before they write on it ‘Remove’. The moment the said structure started, they must quickly take action to pull it down. One aspect is marketing on the street. The hawkers must not be allowed to market on the street. This makes the street dirty and debries left in gutter to congest the pedistriand ways. This advise must be taken by all political partys to avoid giving promises that, “if my party comes to power, I will allow you to market freely on the street. This would not help our development. So, the on going exercise of cleaning the street of hawkers must be continue forever by any government.