The rains are finally here

The past few days have seen the skies opening up over Accra. Since Ghana's agriculture is mainly rainfed, we can only celebrate. Another important reason why we should be celebrating is that Ghana's main source of electric power generation, the Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam is also rain reliant.

In fact, as we write, it is in the grips of its second lowest level ever and another month or so of no rain would have forced the dam to shut down some of its turbines.

The prayer therefore is that we will get enough rains to satisfy our farmers and also to fill the Akosombo Dam.

But the rains do also bring us problems. Flooding for example. The national capital is flood prone, much of it due to our own bad building and environmental practices. In the coming weeks, we will no doubt experience the flooding of parts of the city with the attendant loss of property and life. We hope that from past experience, people living in such flood-prone areas have made ample arrangements to move to safer areas. We are told that Accra would need US$35 million to put up the relevant civil engineering works to control the flooding and may take up to 5 years or more. Getting that kind of money right now is the problem. But even before that money, which we believe was promised by a rich "development partner" sometime ago arrives, we have to take care of our lives and property somehow and that's what we should be doing for the duration of the season which should take us to September, with breaks here and there.