THE PERENNIAL FLOODS STOPS WITH THE PERENNIAL PROPAGANDA
“The news of the death of 12 persons in the recent flooding that hit our nation’s capital is very sad. My sincere condolences to the families of the deceased.
GHS197 million has been released to the Ministry of Works and Housing to desilt choked drains, the contracts for the works have been awarded and are ongoing.
Beyond addressing issues of infrastructure, our attitudes towards sanitation have to change as well, in order to help tackle the problem of perennial flooding in Accra. Every effort is being made by the public authorities to deal with this problem.” That is what Nana Addo tweeted on April 16, 2019.
Well, fast forward to today when we are waking up to news of flooding in some parts of Accra after a midnight downpour. So, I ask, when will proper and absolute measures be put in place to curb flooding in Accra and all the other parts of the country?
After almost a week out of the hustle of Accra, I came back to it again just yesterday. Nature was benevolent enough to nourish the earth with a midnight rain after so much heat in the afternoon. But nature’s good intention to grant us a good night sleep became an unfortunate incident for many people in the city of Accra.
Just like always, many parts of the city were flooded by the rain. I just can’t fathom out how almost every rain causes flood in Accra. So then, are we praying that it never rains in the city?
It is so pathetic that I can’t even begin to think about it. No government in this country seems to have the antidote to this canker that is plaquing lifes and properties in this country.
Every single government since the inception of the fourth republic has been singing the same old song. They all attribute the problem to the bad attitudes of the citizens. Let’s not forget this assertion is not wrong but it applies to everybody including our leaders who sing that song.
To curb the menace of flooding in this country requires coordinated efforts between governments and the ordinary citizens. If citizens change their attitudes without governments taking responsibility or if governments take action without citizens changing their attitudes, both aspects would be an exercise in futility.
So, both governments and citizens require an attitudinal change. But even if governments change their attitudes and start enforcing laws, punishing citizens for committing offenses, putting systems in place to curtail poor behaviour, it would whip the people in line. So, in as much as I advocate for both parties to change their attitudes, governments have the authority to cause both to happen simultaneously.
Most of the gutters in the city are filled with plastic waste. Wastes which could be recycled into other usable material with the right measures in place. Wastes which could have been dumped in waste collection bins if the bins were available. I have held waste in my hand and walked several hours across town without getting a bin to drop it in. Even the few bins that are seen in town get filled with waste without the appropriate authorities responsible for emptying them doing same.
Indeed, governments including the Akuffo Addo administration have been talking about banning plastic waste without any actions to actually complement their words.
In august 2018, the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng is quoted on myjoyonline.com to have told Daniel Dadzie of Joynews that government was considering banning plastic waste. “There has to be a ban on some plastic, but how we are going to do it is something our plan will determine. We will have to start something. I can imagine the situation where we will start with carrier bags, straws, chewing gums, plastic cutlery and things like that…..
We will start with those things and when the water situation improves and we get alternatives for containers for fluids…palm oil and cooking oil in the market and so on” Tilldate, that intention or plan has not yet yielded any fruits.
His Excellency Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo categorically stated that Ghana stands to gain GHS2 billion annually from recycling of plastic waste during his third state of the nation address on February 21, 2019.
He also said that, “In 2019, apart from continuing in educating and sensitizing people, we intend to use the by-laws to enforce cleanliness. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Sanitation are working together to try sanitation offences. People who litter would be tried and punished, and so would those who steal litter bins from our streets.
We are launching a National Sanitation Brigade to help us carry this out, and, through this vehicle, we will not only keep our towns clean but we will provide jobs for our young people.”
Quite unfortunately, I haven’t heard anyone who has been tried and punished in the law court for littering the environment though some people continue to perpetrate the act. Well, if anyone has seen any of these brigades he spoke of in his speech, kindly let me know. Better still, if any youth has been recruited into any such brigade, let us know unless they are supposed to be invincible to the public. Our leaders throw words around without any actions to make their words a reality.
And then he goes on to say that about 82% of the plastic waste generated in Ghana could be readily recovered and recycled with existing technologies into value addition products in high demand locally and within the west African sub region. So, with all the plastic waste that is choking our gutters and littering environment all over the place, when is the 82% going to be collected or is it been done already?
We can’t keep talking our ourself out of our problems. We need to take action. That is the only way to get things done.
After the June 3 disaster in 2015, these were the words of then President John Mahama, “We have to take some measures to be able to avoid this in the future, and often when these moves are started, you have a lot of sympathy and pressure not to take those measures, but I think that the time has come for us to move out of the waterways and the public should understand that.
Four years on, have those measures been taken yet? Have we moved out the waterways? Is the city cleaner than it was? What at all has changed?
The excerpts of all the speeches I have quoted and paraphrased above are not anything new to the ears of the ordinary Ghanaian. We have heard similar speeches over and over again while floods continue to kill us and destroy our properties.
If city authorities were rigorously punishing individuals who build on waterways, do you think others would do same? If unauthorized structures were demolished and their owners punished, people would stop doing that.
If enough opportunities were provided in the rural areas of the country, the city would not be flooded with people like we are experiencing now.
What will it take for us to start taking actions that will actually solve our problems?
My name is Yussif Ahmed. I have been a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism for almost two years now and that is how long I have lived in Accra. If there was an institution in Assin Fosu where I come from, that could offer me what GIJ is offering me, I wouldn’t have come to Accra.
The solution to Ghana’s flooding problem is beyond me just changing my attitudes, even thought that is an integral part of the solution.
YUSSIF AHMED
ahmed.yussiph@gmail.com
GHS197 million has been released to the Ministry of Works and Housing to desilt choked drains, the contracts for the works have been awarded and are ongoing.
Beyond addressing issues of infrastructure, our attitudes towards sanitation have to change as well, in order to help tackle the problem of perennial flooding in Accra. Every effort is being made by the public authorities to deal with this problem.” That is what Nana Addo tweeted on April 16, 2019.
Well, fast forward to today when we are waking up to news of flooding in some parts of Accra after a midnight downpour. So, I ask, when will proper and absolute measures be put in place to curb flooding in Accra and all the other parts of the country?
After almost a week out of the hustle of Accra, I came back to it again just yesterday. Nature was benevolent enough to nourish the earth with a midnight rain after so much heat in the afternoon. But nature’s good intention to grant us a good night sleep became an unfortunate incident for many people in the city of Accra.
Just like always, many parts of the city were flooded by the rain. I just can’t fathom out how almost every rain causes flood in Accra. So then, are we praying that it never rains in the city?
It is so pathetic that I can’t even begin to think about it. No government in this country seems to have the antidote to this canker that is plaquing lifes and properties in this country.
Every single government since the inception of the fourth republic has been singing the same old song. They all attribute the problem to the bad attitudes of the citizens. Let’s not forget this assertion is not wrong but it applies to everybody including our leaders who sing that song.
To curb the menace of flooding in this country requires coordinated efforts between governments and the ordinary citizens. If citizens change their attitudes without governments taking responsibility or if governments take action without citizens changing their attitudes, both aspects would be an exercise in futility.
So, both governments and citizens require an attitudinal change. But even if governments change their attitudes and start enforcing laws, punishing citizens for committing offenses, putting systems in place to curtail poor behaviour, it would whip the people in line. So, in as much as I advocate for both parties to change their attitudes, governments have the authority to cause both to happen simultaneously.
Most of the gutters in the city are filled with plastic waste. Wastes which could be recycled into other usable material with the right measures in place. Wastes which could have been dumped in waste collection bins if the bins were available. I have held waste in my hand and walked several hours across town without getting a bin to drop it in. Even the few bins that are seen in town get filled with waste without the appropriate authorities responsible for emptying them doing same.
Indeed, governments including the Akuffo Addo administration have been talking about banning plastic waste without any actions to actually complement their words.
In august 2018, the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng is quoted on myjoyonline.com to have told Daniel Dadzie of Joynews that government was considering banning plastic waste. “There has to be a ban on some plastic, but how we are going to do it is something our plan will determine. We will have to start something. I can imagine the situation where we will start with carrier bags, straws, chewing gums, plastic cutlery and things like that…..
We will start with those things and when the water situation improves and we get alternatives for containers for fluids…palm oil and cooking oil in the market and so on” Tilldate, that intention or plan has not yet yielded any fruits.
His Excellency Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo categorically stated that Ghana stands to gain GHS2 billion annually from recycling of plastic waste during his third state of the nation address on February 21, 2019.
He also said that, “In 2019, apart from continuing in educating and sensitizing people, we intend to use the by-laws to enforce cleanliness. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Sanitation are working together to try sanitation offences. People who litter would be tried and punished, and so would those who steal litter bins from our streets.
We are launching a National Sanitation Brigade to help us carry this out, and, through this vehicle, we will not only keep our towns clean but we will provide jobs for our young people.”
Quite unfortunately, I haven’t heard anyone who has been tried and punished in the law court for littering the environment though some people continue to perpetrate the act. Well, if anyone has seen any of these brigades he spoke of in his speech, kindly let me know. Better still, if any youth has been recruited into any such brigade, let us know unless they are supposed to be invincible to the public. Our leaders throw words around without any actions to make their words a reality.
And then he goes on to say that about 82% of the plastic waste generated in Ghana could be readily recovered and recycled with existing technologies into value addition products in high demand locally and within the west African sub region. So, with all the plastic waste that is choking our gutters and littering environment all over the place, when is the 82% going to be collected or is it been done already?
We can’t keep talking our ourself out of our problems. We need to take action. That is the only way to get things done.
After the June 3 disaster in 2015, these were the words of then President John Mahama, “We have to take some measures to be able to avoid this in the future, and often when these moves are started, you have a lot of sympathy and pressure not to take those measures, but I think that the time has come for us to move out of the waterways and the public should understand that.
Four years on, have those measures been taken yet? Have we moved out the waterways? Is the city cleaner than it was? What at all has changed?
The excerpts of all the speeches I have quoted and paraphrased above are not anything new to the ears of the ordinary Ghanaian. We have heard similar speeches over and over again while floods continue to kill us and destroy our properties.
If city authorities were rigorously punishing individuals who build on waterways, do you think others would do same? If unauthorized structures were demolished and their owners punished, people would stop doing that.
If enough opportunities were provided in the rural areas of the country, the city would not be flooded with people like we are experiencing now.
What will it take for us to start taking actions that will actually solve our problems?
My name is Yussif Ahmed. I have been a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism for almost two years now and that is how long I have lived in Accra. If there was an institution in Assin Fosu where I come from, that could offer me what GIJ is offering me, I wouldn’t have come to Accra.
The solution to Ghana’s flooding problem is beyond me just changing my attitudes, even thought that is an integral part of the solution.
YUSSIF AHMED
ahmed.yussiph@gmail.com
Comments
Post a Comment