The Director-General of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh, has appealed to the government to commit enough resources to the Works and Housing Ministry so they can work efficiently.
According to him, allocating resources would help the Ministry address the perennial flooding in parts of the country anytime it rains.
The NADMO boss was speaking on a tour of some areas in the Ashanti Region where people are developing in waterways.
Areas he visited include; Ahodwo Daban, Ejisu and Ahinsan.
He disclosed that NADMO was collaborating with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Regional Ministers and various assemblies to implement the order by President Akufo-Addo for all buildings on waterways to be demolished.
“We’ve gone round, and going round, you realize that, people are filling buffers, rivers, wetlands among others, which is very bad. At Ahinsan Estate, we realized there is a wall at the back of KNUST, you see that people want to encroach. We are going to talk to the city authorities that we should not allow anybody to build there because that is the only buffer zone we have for the rivers over there. If they encroach at the end of the day, it is going to bring a problem. We saw a part where people have built some shops and other things, and it is giving the city of Kumasi a lot of flooding problems”.
“People are building anywhere. We have to go beyond the politics – the NPP and NDC politics. Today when you go and someone is filling and building in waterways, they will say because I am an NDC that’s why you are attacking me. If it is an NPP person, he will say it is because I am an NPP person, that’s why you are attacking me. I think we need to desist from that”.
“If you look at most of the places, we need to desilt the places. Desilting is one of the biggest problems we are facing now. That’s why we are experiencing a lot of floods, from central, Greater Accra and other areas. We could see that most of the rivers are full with weeds and other things. So I want to take this opportunity to appeal to the Ministry of Works and Housing, that immediately if government gives them money – they should start doing some desilting works all over the country in various rivers. If we don’t do that, we are going to experience a lot of rains and if works and housing ministry doesn’t get money to do desilting, I am afraid, we are going to experience a lot of floods”.
