At least 50 buildings in the buffer zone along the 900-meter Sober Downstream, a tributary of the Odaw River at Westland in the Ayawaso West Municipality are to be demolished.
A Deputy Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, gave the order on Wednesday when he toured the assembly to inspect the progress of work of the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) project.
The working tour also took the deputy minister and his team to the Ayawaso Central, North, and East municipalities where they ascertained the dredging and desilting of some drains in readiness of the rains.
Mr Adjei-Mensah Korsah who is also the Member of Parliament for Techiman South said, the state had a duty to protect the lives and property and in that vein, if it saw them in danger, it must take steps to protect same.
When the team got to the point where the stream, which had been dredged, joined the Odaw, it observed that the buffer had been encroached with buildings as close as 15 feet on both sides.
A shaky and weak-looking concrete bridge with no protection on both sides connects the two settlements along the stream posing danger to children.
“Anybody who has built in the buffer zone of the drain should be cleared off as soon as possible. There should be no delay in this.
“There is absolutely no basis for these houses to be here. You can see that the course of the water has been diverted to make way for these houses. They should be broken down.
“It may cause disaster if the drain overflows and until it happens, we play the ostrich and nobody seems to see the severity of it but to build your wall in the zone reserved as buffer is unacceptable,” he stated.
Asked if the assembly should not take the blame for looking on for the buildings to be erected, Mr Adjei-Mensah Korsah said yesterday’s inaction could not be used to justify a wrong today.
“Inaction of yesterday does not mean that they should continue standing here. If nobody has acted in the past, it is not too late to act now.
“I don’t think that people should be pampered for perpetuating illegalities. You can see that the drain is even closing up and I dare say come tomorrow, they may close it up to build.”
He said it was critical people changed their attitudes towards waste disposal and make conscious choices regarding their building sites to help reduce the perennial flooding in the national capital, adding that the GARID project and other flood mitigation measures, would not succeed if attitudes did not change.
“For flood mitigation to succeed, citizens must change their behaviour. Our prospects as a city are grim if people do not change their attitudes towards solid waste management and their choices of building sites.”
The Municipal Roads Engineer, Domingo Da Pilma Lekettey, said the assembly would soon take inventory of the area, sensitise all stakeholders and proceed with the demolition with support from the government.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
