A Civil Engineer, Ing Abudulai Mahama, has called on government to prioritise flood mitigation measures in the country to avert the perennial flooding in the country.
According to him, when such measures are implemented, government wouldn’t have to resort to the establishment of the Hydrological Authority under the Ministry of Works and Housing to oversee it. He explained that there is the need to ensure that necessary works are done to salvage the flooding situation in the country.
“Once government decides to prioritise the flood mitigation measures, you don’t need an authority. The interconnectivity between the local assemblies, the local government ministry and superintended by the Works and Housing Ministry will solve this problem.”
Ing Abudulai Mahama
Ing Mahama revealed that there are currently no institutions within the country which offers programs in BSc in hydrology. As such, civil engineers or other engineering departments do their first degrees and then specialize in hydrology. Owing to this, he questioned whether government is going to “poach people from outside the country to come” and man the intended Hydrological Authority.
To address the situation, he called on government to rather get expert civil engineers and make available data to them. He noted that these engineers must be tasked “to redesign all the drainage areas in Accra”.
“Back at the Ministry for Works and Housing, this wouldn’t need any Authority to make it successful…”
Ing Abudulai Mahama
Commenting on the funding to run the Hydrological Authority to mitigate the impact of flooding in the country, Ing Mahama expressed that over the years with successive governments, there are funds which are backed by Acts, passed by parliament and those funds are used at the “discretion of the ministry of finance”. He explained that due to the processes that a request for funding might go through, there is the tendency for projects to be delayed.
“Sadly, we will get to a stage, maybe after ten years, and we will all be sitting here, and when we try to put performance based audit on the Hydrological Services Authority, we will not have anything to say about them. Because the money will definitely go through a certain ministry and the board cannot rant and the monies will be given to them. The parliament, with all the good thing that they’ve said, they come wrong because of past records of Authorities who directly need funds from their mother units.”
Ing Abudulai Mahama
Funding to address flooding
Ing Mahama opined that the “floods are not going to wait for you to get the money before the next three years for you to expand”. He emphasized that when the flood monies are not released on time, the impact of flooding every year will remain the same.
“… Where there has been a proposal for the past five or so to have eighteen retention pond and government has not prioritised even the construction of one, the flood will not wait for you, especially when there has been exponential expansion of population [and] infrastructure demand across the country and especially the capital…”
Ing Abudulai Mahama
Prior to this, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, bemoaned the perennial flooding in Accra and called on MPs to rally together to address the issue. Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, he disclosed that Parliament has taken note of the issue, and is determined to deal decisively with the matter.
As a consequent, he proposed a dialogue between the House and the respective sector ministers to generate viable solutions to resolve the annual crisis.
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