The Accra floods have been politicised by President John Mahama.
He said his predecessor collected money from the World Bank and failed to utilise it for the purpose of addressing the perennial weather force majeure.
The politically scathing remark was intended to hit the then ruling government following a destructive downpour just before the last elections.
The subject is now fully politicised and now a punching bag for politicians. Now that the man who claimed he would address floods in Accra by dismantling the Sanitation Ministry and returning it to the Local Government Ministry is in charge and the situation has rather worsened, we can only wonder what informs his politically reckless rhetoric which only exposes this flanks for invectives.
Interestingly, his appointees appear to be picking from his rulebook and using same for their political ends, sometimes woefully.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Obenewaa Akweley Ocloo, is one such disciple of the President on flood matters.
Having suffered from her ‘punishing transfer to the North’ remark for public servants who issue bad building permits, she appears to have learnt nothing from reckless utterances.
She is reported to have claimed victory over the Accra floods.
Hear her: “I have tackled sanitation, flooding, chieftaincy disputes, street lighting and boundary issues within the Greater Accra Region.”
Of course she is lying, to put it bluntly. Flooding is such a serious issue in Accra, and so when a minister in charge of the region looks us in the face and lies, she has not only disgraced herself but insulted our intelligence.
Where are they, both National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament who pleaded that she be spared the grueling Appointments Committee session prior to her appointment?
Ghanaians were denied the opportunity by this exemption to learn about the woman the President had nominated for the headship of the Greater Accra Region.
The Ghana Meteorological Authority has warned of heavy rainfall not seen in the past 30 years. This is not a forecast which should be watered down with this irresponsible lie by the minister who just doesn’t know what she is talking about. People are losing their property through flooding in Accra, and so such baseless claims can only irritate them and rightly so.
Tackled street lighting in Accra? Accra has never seen such darkness, and she claims to have dealt with this challenge?
She might have to go round town and see things for herself.
As for the chieftaincy disputes and border problems, we do not know what she is talking about. For the residents of Accra, the floods and streetlights, the former especially, is what concerns them most and not the so-called border problems.
The flooding in Accra is beyond her, and the earlier she stopped claiming victory over something she cannot address, the better.
Tackling floods in Accra is not like defending vote-buying as she did at Ablekuma North election rerun in selected polling stations.