The government has launched the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) project to stem the trend of flooding in the national capital, Accra.
The implementing agencies of the social behaviour change campaign are the Ministries of Works and Housing, Sanitation and Water Resources and Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development.
The project formed part of a holistic approach government was adopting to manage flood and solid waste in flood prone informal settlements within the Odaw basin.
Campaign activities including sensitization under the project would be carried out in basic schools, markets, lorry parks, religious gatherings within the Odaw enclave.
Launching the project in Accra yesterday, the Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, asked the citizenry to support the government by being responsible in handling their solid and liquid wastes.
“Government alone cannot solve the sanitation and flooding problems in the country.
It must be a shared responsibility. Our own actions and inactions contribute to the flooding challenges in Accra and the country at large,” MrAsenso-Boakye, who is also the Member of Parliament for Bantama said.
The role of the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the regional capital, through the intensification of the enforcement of the laws, he said, could not be overlooked.
“For the flood mitigation to succeed, assemblies should work as expected of them,” he stated adding that “at the core of these challenges is the inappropriate human behaviour in our own communities. We the people should complement government’s efforts in this regard.”
According to MrAsenso-Boakye, the implementation of the GARID would not succeed if such inappropriate human behaviours were not checked.
As a motivation, he said the ‘Cleanest Market’ and ‘Cleanest Lorry Park’ award schemes would be instituted to honour the cleanest open spaces within the Odaw catchment area.
Since assuming office in 2017, the Bantama lawmaker said government has made huge investments under the national flood control and priority drainage programme and remain committed to ensuring that the menace of flooding in Accra was reduced to its minimum bearing.
The Sanitation and Water Resources Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, on her part said as part of her outfit’s component in the project, a new landfill site would be built, a centre for a buy-back products like plastics, and solid waste collection in communities along the Odaw channel amongst others.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
