Government urged to expedite flooding control measures
Mr. Emmanuel Boryor, the Assemblyman of Glefe in the Ablekuma West constituency, has called on the Works and Housing Ministry to speed up work on projects ahead of the rainy season to mitigate flooding.
He said there is the need to find permanent solutions to flooding, saying efforts in the past years had been unsuccessful because of lack of resources.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, he said the construction of a sea defence wall in the area, had restricted the flow of water into the sea, since the channels had been blocked.
Consequently, it increases the volume of water in the rivers which subsequently overflowed their banks into various households.
He said that the Assembly had engaged a contractor to help desilt the channels leading into the sea, especially the Vugbe and Gyatakpor rivers in the Glefe area.
Dredging exercise would also be carried out on the choked channels in the area.
“The contractor has begun work on the channels and we are optimistic that it would provide a temporary fix for the meantime,” Mr Boryor said.
Touching on the hurling of waste into rivers in the community, he underscored that the Assembly had warned all encroachers on the rivers to desist from such unscrupulous acts, as it is a major cause of flooding in the area.
He also cautioned against the building of structures on water ways.
The Assemblyman called on the constituents to be vigilant at all cost and be able to call out perpetrators, who fling waste into gutters and especially, rivers in the vicinity.
“We usually receive relief items from National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), MTN and some media houses anytime there is flooding but we must collaborate to prevent it rather than relying on NADMO.”
Madam Regina Doe, a resident, said she was filling her compound with heaps of sand in bid to raise the ground level to serve as a barrier for flood waters.
She urged the government to enforce bye laws on sanitation, to discourage people from dumping waste into water bodies and gutters to help control the situation.
Source: GNA