Deputy director general of technical reforms at the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), Seji Saji Amedonu, has revealed that his outfit is working round the clock to help ensure the reopening of schools in flood affected areas in the country.

According to him, NADMO is currently on the “recovery stage”, following the halting of spillage about a week ago. He indicated that his outfit is trying as much as possible to bring back to normal, the state in which the people were before the incident happened – which is the recovery stage.

“There are some issues to deal with – issues with education and issues with some stagnant water still in the communities, we are still working on that. Most of our safe havens are classroom blocks so educational activities has come to a halt in quite a number of those schools. We have succeeded to a large extent in Central Tongu to restore back educational activities…”
Seji Saji Amedonu

Mr Amedonu stated that efforts are underway to ensure that displaced persons in classrooms which have been converted to safe havens are transferred to some few tents as temporary relocation centers. He explained that soon as these tents are erected, by close of day tomorrow, all schools in Central Tongu will be in session.

“The challenge is in North Tongu – we may be able to start something maybe next week. We are hoping that we’ll have some few tents we can erect that can be used as temporary classroom blocks for now.”
Seji Saji Amedonu

Touching on the issue of the receding of water, Mr Amedonu stated that NADMO has been able to create outlets for the swift passage of stagnant water following the gradual receding of the water. He noted that apart from that, there’s a team coming in tomorrow, November 7 to start some assessment.

“It’s a team from the UN Interagency group that includes the Ghana Institute of Engineers, CPA, VRA and NADMO itself. They’ll be doing some assessments to ascertain what exactly we are dealing with when it comes to the issue of decontamination, disinfection and fumigation and they’ll be looking at the structural integrity of some of the structures.”
Seji Saji Amedonu

Returning normalcy to affected communities

Furthermore, Mr Amedonu explained that some fumigation has gone on already, and the next phase has to do with moving the people back to their houses so that the classrooms will be free for learning and teaching to begin.

He highlighted that currently, NADMO does not have too much challenge in lower Manya and Asuogyaman. However, he stated that challenges are rife in areas where the safe havens are situated in the four districts – North Tongu, Central Tongu, the Asutsuare side of the Shai Osudoku and Ada itself.

“What has happened is the fumigation, it’s only the fumigation that has happened, it started even when the situation was unfolding. Zoomlion came in to fumigate all the safe havens. But when the water started receding, the places that the water had completely receded, some fumigations had gone on…”
Seji Saji Amedonu

Meanwhile, Mr Amedonu noted that as it stands now, restoring normalcy to displaced communities and persons will be a bit difficult. Nonetheless, he revealed that it is a process which releavant authorites and stakeholders are ready to undertake.

“As I mentioned, for a place like Central Tongu, in the aspect of education, to a large extent, things are becoming a bit normal. So, that’s how it’s going to go in all the other sectors. It’ll take some time, but we are working very hard to make sure that as soon as possible things will return to normal.”
Seji Saji Amedonu