Editorial

Both action and caution needed to deal with flooding

The Ghanaian Times has once again been forced to comment on flooding in the country and related issues.

It is now public knowledge that parts of Accra and other urban areas in the Greater Accra Region, as well as Kasoa in the Central Region, were flooded on Saturday following hours of torrential rainfall in those areas.

Places like the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, Kaneshie Lorry Station, North Kaneshie, Alajo and Adabraka in Accra; Tema and Kasoa were all reported as having been heavily affected, submerging homes and washing away personal belongings.

The situation compelled residents in the affected areas to evacuate their homes and seek shelter in other buildings and facilities.

The floodwaters further covered major roads and highways within the capital, obstructing vehicular movement and causing heavy traffic, particularly at the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and the stretch from the Tuba Junction tollbooths towards the West Hills Mallon the Kasoa-Accra road.

This paper has been blaming stakeholders like the district assemblies and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) for not doing what is expected of them, hence the continuous flooding, in some cases avoided, and all the associated woes.

Though developers are also to be blamed, the Ghanaian Times blames public stakeholder organisations the more because theirs is to apply the law but exhibit a lot of negligence or failure.

Flooding is a natural occurrence but can be managed to reduce its effects or woes.

For instance, if the assemblies would work according to the law, no developer could build at unauthorised places.

However, even the untrained mind knows that the negative happenings in the assemblies give bad citizens the impetus to show the kind of impudence in the housing sector.

The Ghanaian Times would continue to raise such issues while calling for change in the hope that officials of the assemblies, NADMO and other stakeholders would prosecute their mandates to the letter to ensure sanity in the system.

Ensuring sanity should include demolition of structures obstructing free flow of floodwaters and prosecution of developers who show impudence in the system.

The assistance of the courts is very much needed in this case and the public would expect fairness and equality before the law in which case there should be no delays in prosecution and no hand must try to influence any verdict or judgement.

While the whole nation tries to seek ways to manage flooding and contain its woes, the members of the public, whether living in flood-prone areas or not, must cultivate the habit of always knowing what the weather would be like every day.

This is because everyone can be caught in the middle of floods and suffer some woes.

It is indisputable that many of the passengers and drivers whose vehicles got stuck in floods last Saturday live in very safe areas but because they were out of home at the time the rains came, they suffered in one way or another.

Meanwhile the Ghana Meteorological Agency had earlier warned of torrential rainfall and flooding in the southern part of the country and urged the public to stay safe.

Ghanaians should stop rubbishing weather forecasts and take precautions henceforth.

The public should also keep the police emergency numbers 18555, 191 and 0302787373 inmind and call the police for help when stranded due to flooding.

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