Accra Floods – charge contractors with corporate manslaughter

Accra Floods – charge
contractors with corporate manslaughter – Ras Mubarak

The perennial Accra floods came and left, as always, leaving
in its wake devastation. Nine Ghanaian lives have been reported lost, many
people displayed and property worth thousands of cedis destroyed. Someone one
was also beaten up at Awoshie Mangoase, thrown in jail because he had broken
down a fence wall for water to pass so he can save his drowning three year old
child, wife and other relatives who were caught up in a submerged home.

This is not the time to look at international community for
help and assistance or time for the petty partisanship that usually take
precedence over the real issues. People are dead, homes are destroyed and for
once, let us put aside the politics of point scoring and look at the real
issues.

I was distraught when I visited twenty six homes in Ablekuma
North constituency, one of the worse hit areas. And one of the key issues that came
up in my interaction with
victims is the drainage system.

Bottom line – poor construction of roads and
gutters may have led to the loss of lives and property. The general view is
that contractors are cutting corners. Drainage or roads that are to be built
according to certain standards are not built properly.

If it can be established that some of the damage has been as
a result of half-hearted construction works, such contractors should be charged
for corporate man-slaughter. Contractors ought to know that once you take a
contract, you are obliged to ensure that the work you execute does not endanger
lives. We need government procurement rules with built-in clauses to ensure
that citizens are protected from poor quality construction work.

I would like to call for an immediate inquiry into the
extent to which poor construction led to the damage caused by the floods; and
if constructors are found culpable, they ought to be arrested immediately and
prosecuted for negligence and corporate manslaughter. Building strong
institutions means people who are found guilty of wrong doing should face the
music.

There is also an overall need for government to develop its positions
and introduce recommendations at the local and even international level to
contribute towards minimizing the effects of Climate CHANGE. At a local level, this
should impact on the design of our
cities for which we need our Engineers and Architects to introduce new
Construction Standards for our roads, town planning etc.

I would also like to propose that government basic schools
in the country have swimming pools where pupils would, as part of their
Physical Education, be given lessons on how to swim. One of the basic
requirements of health and safety is that, one helps himself before
others.

We don’t need a situation where victims have to wait on
others to come and rescue them. Let’s begin to teach our children how to look
out for themselves in unforeseen circumstances like the one we just witnessed
in Accra.

On health, we need to re-train our local health professionals
to deal with diseases in the aftermath of such climate change related
phenomenon. These include preparing the local hospitals for post- flood
ailments such as diarrhea, cholera and other water-borne diseases
.
With the UN Climate Change Conference in South Africa around
the corner, it is important for the government of Ghana to make public its
positions towards the Durban Conference in South Africa and to ensure that our
National Policies and Local Government programs takes into consideration the
impact of Climate change to minimize such natural disasters in our local
communities.
We cannot entirely prevent natural disasters from occurring
but we can limit the impact of such disasters and once again, here we are with
a very unique opportunity of using new ideas to solve an old problem. It is
another wakeup call to the nation; we cannot afford to let the people down.