Is it just a revelation the gas (petrol) stations have no permit albeit have been operating for years in the shadows. Is that all the Minister of Environment, Mahama Ayariga can tell us? What action or remedies does he need to take and immediately? Will he go to sleep?
This is not the first disaster from floods that Ghana has witnessed, there are records dating back as 1936 an millennials will remember 1995 and even as recent as 2011. But this is by far the most devastating and the most injurious part is that it is all man made one. The triple convergence of urbanization, poor land and country planning, and the overriding factor of building in water ways in the floods plains of the capital city of Accra are the major causes of floods in Accra.
I personally, grew up in the Kpehe town aka Caprice, but the building from which the town got its nickname is now Boomerang. This town is exactly the confluence of the Odaw and Onyasia rivers and prone to perennial flooding. The town has the only major bridge linking the capital of Accra to the northern parts of the country. This alone makes me an authority on flooding in Accra because I have seen it all.
Oh! So Mr Ayiriga can go back and sleep on the job for the rest of the one and a half years left in office? It sounds to me like that is how every public official have done their jobs in over half a century. Do mark these words on the walls of your comfortable -bedrooms; "gone back to sleep."
This case pre-dates "A" for Ayariga to "Z" Zaya you all remember A for Dr. Anane a Health Minister on a USA trip to an HIV/AIDS conference and mating with a USA contractor out of wedlock and got fired. How about Betty Mould Iddrisu’s tenure as Attorney General is well known with the judgment debts and the list goes on and on.
There are tons of examples of going back to sleep leaders in our country but get promoted Ayariga was once Minister of Sports too before becoming the Minister of Environment so what do you expect to happen? From the World Cup saga under Afriyie Ankrah who later changed portfolio.
Then you have another example of Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom now wanting to be president. He claimed he got Ghana the MCA-Compact under President Bush for Ghana. Let me not explain, the desperation of President Bush wanting to do good for once, having lost the hearts and minds of the global community, following the fiasco of WMD that led to the Iraq invasion.
So if Ghana put anyone on the committee we would have got the "Big Money" any way. Dr. Nduom as a Public Sector Reform minister and the failure of the 4S Pay structure is well known and if Ghana is "Bankrupt!" -Akufo Addo said.
It is because of the same reason of wages and salaries that did not make sense under Nduom's Single Spine Salary Structure, was a program typical of sleeping on the job. After all the training Dr Nduom got in the UK Manchester University for two weeks the Kufuor government could not implement the salary structure. But left the transfer notes for the next regime to get it implemented.
We do have one salient but forgotten one the "Hotel D e Waawaa, " billed for demolition because of a major defect of building on Waterways in the Airport residential area, that could cause major flooding of Accra like we saw on July 2 & 3 killing 152 people an inferno triggered by flooding and gas station explosion.
The highest authority of the land at the time President Kufuor used executive powers to literally say "let it be," the building on major waterways suffered no demolition. The good part is it became owned by a consortium we were told was created by his son Chief Kufuor.
Kwesi Pratt was vocal and the only voice of dissent but nothing happened. It is all going back to sleep syndrome. Therefore, the solution to our lives problems by public officers tasked and paid to work for us is. Don't go back to sleep and certainly never sleep on the job as Mahama Ayiriga want us to believe they all do.