Mr. Samuel Atta Akyea, Water Resources, Works and Housing Minister, has announced a raft of flood-prevention measures ahead of this year’s rainy season.

This includes pulling down structures erected on waterways, removing silt from major water courses, construction of drains and dredging of the Odaw River.
He indicated that these activities were being jointly carried out by his ministry, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Sanitation Ministry and the assemblies.

The Minister was answering a question in Parliament from Mr. Kwame Governs Agbodza, MP for Adaklu on steps taken to deal with the perennial flooding in the capital city of Accra.

He said they were also updating the hydro and urban geographical map and would be conducting hydro-geological studies on “a basin by basin basis”.
Accra had over the years been hit by devastating floods, largely caused by the choking of major drains with silt and garbage.

Mr. Atta Akyea indicated that “if Ghana should have a permanent solution, we should go to places where you would not see filth floating in drains, where you would not see any sewage - everything is underground”.
He said although that was going to cost huge sums of money, it was better to go that path to have a permanent fix.

He added that until recently the approach had been mainly reactive, often focused on recovery instead of disaster reduction or mitigation.
He also underlined the need to put more emphasis on forecasting, hydrological and meteorological monitoring.

The 2018 budget allocated GH?5.5 million to the Ministry.