Greater Accra Director for the Ghana Highways Authority, Ing. Emmanuel Laryea Odai, has revealed that one of the reasons for the perennial flooding in Accra has to do with the attitude exhibited by individuals in the country.

Ing. Odai indicated that the negative effect of the recent downpour in Accra can only be resolved once people reform their way of doing things which largely impacts the environment. Elaborating on the extent of the downpour’s damage on some of Accra’s road networks, he explained that roads in areas such as Kasoa, Mile 7, Dodowa and Pokuase were heavily affected.

To address the issue, the Ghana Highways Authority’s Greater Accra Director opined that his outfit has put in place some “contingency measures so that some of the areas could be settled for now”.

“The issue is that it is more of attitudinal the way we handle our drains and… we have solutions to most of these problems. I wouldn’t say all because we have natural disasters. So, currently, the general network plan for Greater Accra is not properly followed because of the different agencies tackling the drainage problem. We have the Works and Housing doing their part [and] when it comes to highways, we normally do these tertiary drains; those by the roadside and then we have individuals that construct their own [drains] without consulting… So, it’s more of attitudinal. So, you can construct the road, just give it one year and it will be silted.”
Ing. Emmanuel Laryea Odai

Addressing flooding in Kasoa

Commenting on the devastation caused on the Kasoa road due to the heavy downpour over the weekend, Ing. Odai revealed that the contractor responsible for the Kasoa tollbooth road is not delivering on schedule. This, he explained, has stalled the progress on the construction of the road.

Additionally, Ing. Odai noted that although he doesn’t want to specifically blame any institution as well for the flooding in the country, it will take the concerted effort of all stakeholders to address the problem.

“There is some construction going on that is suppose to retain the silt and only allow the water to come. The contractor is not really going [fast] as expected and you know normally it takes a long time to give a contract… So, there is some work being done there. It’s now the basic things that need to be tackled which is people building all over on the hill and we need to have a proper investigation about the thing and to understand whether it’s okay to build there or not.”
Ing. Emmanuel Laryea Odai

Meanwhile, Ing. Odai expressed that for now it will be difficult to cancel the contract despite the contractor’s delay. He highlighted that once a contractor is assessed and determined to have the capacity for the job, most often than not, “when it comes to delivery, we start having problems”. He stated that there isn’t much the Authority can do to salvage the situation since the project is at a stage where “when you give it to another contractor, he will not do it at all”.

“So, sometimes it is a bit difficult treating those aspect when the project gets stalled. We know it’s a perennial problem and it needs to be treated once and for all but once you try solving the problem then… you see people developing the place the more and creating more problems and compounding what we already have.”
Ing. Emmanuel Laryea Odai