Any time it rains, the loopholes or defects in the planning of communities in the country are exposed on a large scale.
Yesterday’s rains flooded places where such flooding could have been avoided if the district assemblies had paid attention to planning in their jurisdictions.
Every year we hear of plans to contain flooding in certain communities, yet year after year such places keep flooding.
What is happening? Does it mean public officials in charge of town and country planning and administration of districts and regions just love talking?
Annually, the management of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) keep assuring the country of their preparedness to contain flooding yet flooding becomes worse in subsequent years.
It appears state institutions which should coordinate to solve the problems do not do enough.
Once again, we ask, “What’s happening?”
Is it a matter of the usual refrain of no funds?
It seems because there are excuses to hang on to, public officials, particularly the sector ministers and District Chief Executives (DCEs), refuse to make the needed efforts.
It is not enough for public officials to express sympathies when disasters occur.
It is not enough either to give relief items to victims of floods, for example, as such items do not compensate for their losses in any way.
It is indisputable that the ordinary man bears the brunt of flooding in the country more, with politicians and other public officials displaying their hypocrisy in comments that are just a matter of charade.
There are various problems in the country but one which affects many, especially in the cities, is flooding.
Urban communities are expanding at explosive rates because of the uneven and lack of community-specific development of the country.
This is causing rural folks to migrate to where they believe they can, at least, eke a living.
Yesterday, we published a story in which farmers in the Tolon District of the Northern Region were complaining about how lack of an irrigation systems was undermining farming activities in the area.
They said the situation was negatively affecting livelihoods and so the youth there were migrating down south to seek greener pastures.
What this means is that these migrants would come and put additional pressure on the urban communities they would choose to live in.
Such migrants create sprawling settlements, all because the district assemblies do not control community development in any serious way.
And when it rains heavily and causes flooding, these helpless people suffer.
One other problem has to do with engineering works.
Yesterday, as previous times, the Kasoa-Accra road got flooded and areas like the Tollbooth, Shopping Mall and Ataala got seriously flooded.
The perennial flooding of these areas has to do with sloppy engineering works.
It is about time the country’s administrators fixed problems that affect life, livelihoods and property.
Flooding is one such huge problem.
The Ministry of Works and Housing, for instance, should stop giving assurances of resolving the flooding problem during the dry season and go to sleep for the rains to come to wreak havoc to wake them up.
We need action to resolve the flooding problem and that action should include the assemblies checking and prosecuting those who in a way contribute to the flooding such as those who have built on waterways and those who throw rubbish into drains.
