Is Ghana ready for another natural disaster?

Recently, we all witnessed what happened in Sierra Leone, where over 400 people were confirmed dead and about 600 missing after a mudslide.

This I can say is highly possible in Ghana given the disregard to proper town and country planning, especially in the southern part of the country. Such an atrocity is imminent in the country and may happen at the blind side of most policy makers, thus if the appropriate actions are not taken with a sense of urgency.

Disaster management agencies in Ghana should be up and doing in forecasting and preventing national disasters, rather than running after relief items to distribute to affected victims, when those disasters occur.

It is a common custom in our country that, agencies that are given the legal mandate to play some of these important roles have been rendered dormant.

These agencies and institutions are rather practicing what I term as “firefighting actions”…. that is to say, hastening, forming committees, blowing police motorcades, granting interviews on televisions and radio stations to the public with or without researched facts on disaster situations and presidents paying visits to affected victims.

Indeed, this I can also attribute to the pure politically engineered ploy to loot state resources. Some monies will be lost in planning to undertake temporary measures to resolving such issues.

Careful investigations and random inspections around some areas in the Greater Accra Region, give off signs of mudslides, especially along points marked as earthquake prone areas. And, these authorities are aware but have turned a blind eye on waiting for the looming danger to explode so they can sarcastically grin in front of cameras and share their unsought-for expert opinions.

The signs are clear when one travels on slightly elevated areas in the Greater Accra Region- mud accumulating on the fringes of roads. Where do you think this mud comes from?

Clear negligence on the part of disaster agencies, policy makers resulted in that massive death toll recorded in such situation as it has happened to our brothers and sisters in Sierra Leone.

This we can also attribute to be a poor housing and planning in the capitals of those countries. So one will ask, where is the Town and Country Planning? To me, that agency has virtually lost its relevance. It has failed to ensure the planning and arrangement of our cities and making them proper habitation zones safe enough to accommodate the ever growing population.

The result of this negligence on the part of mandated authorities has led to the indiscriminate construction of houses just everywhere and anywhere people find convenient. And the awful part is that, some of these settlements do not make room for other essential infrastructure such as parks, markets, etc.

A clear case study of such situation, which is mostly likely to result in Ghana, is on the Weija and Kasoa corridors of hills along the Accra cape coast highway. This place has over the years experienced massive environmental destabilization on top of the hills by quarry activities and which is been back-filled with poor slit clay which is weak in adhesion bearing capacity.

Due to that when it rains all the runoff water with thick
silts from the top of the hill settle on the highway.
And I am sure many of our policy-makers have plied this route and have seen the impending devastation looming to cause havoc.

For me it is not just being pessimistic about events. But with my knowledge in environmental issues, I can conclude that, if we are so reluctant in forecasting and working to respond to disaster threats in our country, we will one day wake up to see a major mass burial and the humongous loss of properties around the Weija- Kasoa hill.

Normally, we wait until there is actual destruction to lives and properties before we begin looking for the solutions. Just not long ago, there were rocks falls at Accra- Aburi highway posing a very major disaster threat to lives and properties, until government was forced to redirect its policy towards area to address it.

Therefore by purely technical position, many areas in the capital are not habitable for human beings, due to geological disaster lines such as earthquakes, flooding prone zones and possible mudslides as well as rock falls etc., This I think we should pay close attention to if we love the lives of the people living in this country.

I have taken a little pain to study and appreciate some of the problems pertaining to the weija situation and I think it needs serious action to resettle all those people who are currently living there.

Going forward government can do proper reclamation of the area and make use of it as a vegetation belt for trees for natural conservation.
This I recommend government should take it so serious,