Choked gutters, filth, blocked waterways; The shameful habits that turned catastrophic
June 3, 2015 will definitely go down as a disastrous day in our history. The day when the rains poured, the floods came and raging fire consumed scores of people seeking shelter from the floods.
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The videos on social media and television footages of scenes at the fuel station in Accra where over 70 persons lost their lives are too chilling. Among the rubbles at the fire scene was some unfinished business typical of a normal early evening scene in that busy part of Accra.
Cooked rice with spaghetti and baked beans lined up all ready for selling survived the floods and fire but the popular rice seller and her assistant did not. A student’s backpack with books, another’s backpack still strapped to his back, a taxi driver burnt to death, stiff behind his steering wheel, another private driver strapped in his seat, a young boy returning from school - the chilling videos and pictures looked like scenes in a movie but sadly, they were real.
In other parts of the city, the floods swept people and properties away and destroyed many more. Vehicle showrooms and workshops along the Graphic Road were scenes to be pitied. Computers, furniture in offices and some banking halls were soaked. The loss in monetary terms may run into millions of Ghana Cedis while the death toll keeps rising.
Sad and regrettable as they are, the blame for the floods in Accra may be said to be greatly the seeds of impunity, indiscipline and high sense of irresponsibility that have engulfed our society for years.
It is rightly said that when one throws a ball at a wall, it bounces back. That is exactly what we have experienced within the city of Accra with perennial floods whenever it rains cats and dogs. With impunity and no regard for laws, we build anywhere and authorities watch on. Buildings and structures have been sited in waterways but who cares?
We have unfortunately turned uncovered drains into dumping sites for refuse thus blocking the free passage of water when it rains. We litter indiscriminately and when it rains they get swept into open gutters.
Two days after the floods of June 3, I drove around some areas which were badly affected by the floods. The level of destruction to properties around the Graphic Road and parts of Sakaman, a suburb of Accra, was unimaginable.
The pain of the havoc visited on Accra - the June 3 floods - is the result of our own actions and inactions. The rains would have come but the level of flooding could have been minimised if we had been responsible with managing litter and the way we build houses and structures without due recourse to the building laws of the country.
But to share the blame are those institutions who are trusted with the powers of the land to protect and defend lives and properties while ensuring law and order in a clean environment within a well-planned and spaced-out city for human comfort.
One finds it difficult to understand why jobs cannot be created for the unemployed youth who may want to be sanitary inspectors to go round homes and communities to arrest people who litter indiscriminately. There is the need so where lies the problem?
In the meantime, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) should consider reviewing downwards the rates for rubbish collection which went up by some 200 per cent last year. That upward adjustment has excluded many who were using the services of waste management companies.
Due to affordability in some communities, people are just piling up their rubbish and dumping them in drains and other unwanted places. The AMA then pays money to employ people to clean up whatever mess whereas the situation could have been saved with adjustment to the rates to enable more people to use the services of waste collectors.
Drastic measures are needed to curb the indiscipline and impunity which have crept into our waste disposals. We need well-spaced-out communities built with others in mind. We would need the Meteorological Department to give us advanced, accurate and repeated warnings about the magnitude of storms to be expected.
The catastrophe that occurred on June 3 should never again befall us. The impunities should not be allowed to continue. The law should begin to punish indiscriminate littering and punish owners of illegal structures on waterways. Above all, the Meteorological Department should give us adequate warnings on storms well in advance before they take us by surprise.
Condolences to the families of those who lost dear lives on June 3 to floods and fire.
