While haphazard development is responsible for some of the flooding, others are the result of the choking of our gutters through indiscriminate garbage disposal.
The flooding, which sometimes leaves in its wake destruction, often prompts the authorities to promise remedying the situation to obviate future recurrence. Since the last rainy season and the ones before it, we have not seen any development to obviate a recurrence.
The authorities have not acted as they promised, just as residents have not changed their attitude towards the environment. Last week, Accra was visited by two downpours, one of which flooded some parts of the city as if to warn us about the approaching season and what could be in it for us should we not do something to forestall possible flooding.
Much as we doubt if anything substantial can be done now to contain possible flooding of some parts of the city, we think that the emergency services should be on full alert to respond to distress calls.
There is no way we can contain continuous three hours of rainfall in Accra, considering the poor nature of our drainage system and the current works going on at the Graphic area where a bus lane construction has caused some forms of obstruction to the normal flow of water from the Odaw river as it heads for the sea.
The recent flooding suggests that the ongoing development and its attendant obstruction compel the water to recede and thus threatening residents of the Circle area, Avenor and others. We are pained by the realization that city authorities and other relevant government agencies have failed over the years to take the critical measures to forestall the annual flooding.
The previous de-silting of the city’s drainage is now a thing of the past, recalled only as a matter of history.
The Agbogbloshie story for instance has become a matter of political derision because politicians, out of their fear of losing votes, have prevented the city authorities from relocating the squatters in that part of the city. The multi-million cedi ecological project continues to be at the mercy of the squatters who appear to have beaten the authorities.
The authorities would not be forgotten when the forthcoming rainy season comes with the vengeance which claims lives and destroys property. The fact is that we are ill-prepared for the rainy season and therefore not in a position to contain flooding of some parts of the city, which is likely.
Much as we pray that the rainy season, as it prepares to commence, does so with little or no flooding, we doubt whether nature would oblige our request, given our carelessness to matters concerning the environment and the insincerity of politicians at the helm.
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