Attitudinal change, answer to Accra floods
Residents of Accra have to brace up for floods so long as they live in the city. It is perennial, it is an annual ritual.
Advertisement
The floods are not caused only by the indiscriminate disposal of refuse into open drains, streams and open spaces.
The filth that engulfs the city even after a few minutes of rain shows that there is something wrong with the management of waste in the city.
For Accra to be submerged after an hour of torrential rains brings to question the accolade of the city as ‘Millennium City’ by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
The AMA and other statutory authorities in the countryside have very elaborate by-laws to regulate the conduct of residents and yet these regulations are not enforced.
There are by-laws to regulate how residents, especially landlords, should maintain their frontages but gutters in front of houses in the city are left for sanitary workers to clean.
The by-laws also frown on the littering of the environment, but, here again, the AMA and other district assemblies look on helplessly as refuse engulfs the communities.
The media have highlighted the harm that scrap dealers are causing to the Odaw River on the Graphic Road and here again no action is taken because the AMA is waiting for disaster to strike before it is stirred into action from its deep slumber.
The Daily Graphic thinks the time has come for all residents to step back and redefine their status in the city in relation to how to get the AMA to initiate the necessary actions that can transform Accra into a true Millennium City.
There is no way we can stop the rains. Indeed we need the rains to help renew the vegetation and refine the weather but when they come, they should not cause pain to majority of the residents.
Nonetheless, the only way to allow for a free flow of rain waters is for us to resolve not to choke the gutters and drains with plastic waste and other undesirables.
The attainment of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) seven on environmental sustainability is less than a year away and the only way we can achieve that goal is a change in attitude towards the environment.
We need public education to get the people to change their behaviour but those who persist in this dangerous attitude to the environment must be made to face the full rigours of the law.
The AMA and other district assemblies must enforce their regulations by cracking the whip on those who are bent on making life uncomfortable for law-abiding citizens.
We are not in the rainy season yet but the vulnerability of the city to contain floods has been exposed. Rather than bemoan the disaster, it should serve as a wake-up call to the city authorities to revive all the projects that are envisaged to deal with the floods in the city.
The Daily Graphic wants to know what has happened to the many projects announced by the government and the AMA to expand the storm drains in Accra and build new ones to forestall the floods in Accra.
We should persuade the people to change their attitudes but we must be ready to punish the deviants to serve as a deterrent to others to restore the days of the dreaded sanitary inspectors, otherwise known as Tankasi, who could even inspect cooking utensils in the kitchen to ensure that food is prepared under hygienic conditions.