DEALING EFFECTIVELY WITH THE FLOODS (JUNE 21, 2010)

Reports from various parts of the country indicate that many towns and cities have been hit hard by serious flooding, following torrential rains across the country.
In a number of places, reports have it that fatalities occurred when flood waters inundated residential areas and swept a number of people from their homes (see front page)
In many of these areas, property running into millions of cedis have either been carried way or completely destroyed, and dozens of people rendered homeless in other cases where residential buildings have collapsed.
The issue of flooding is not new, indeed it is an annual affair with the onset of the rainy season.
Through a combination of lack of proper planning, the non-enforcement of building regulations and sheer indiscipline on the part of land developers, the problems have been aggravated over the years.
It is common to see buildings sited on watercourses, on roads or in other areas earmarked for public places.
Notwithstanding markings of "Stop Work, produce permit or face demolition" nothing gets done and more and more of such buildings continue to spring up by the day.
These illegal activities, without doubt, block watercourses, thereby preventing storm waters from accessing drains constructed to convey these waters to their destinations.
We have had to, on many occasions, call on the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDCEs) to endeavour to rigorously enforce building regulations to help restore sanity to our towns and cities.
It is well known that, the lack of enforcement of these regulations coupled with the lack of the will to carry through some of the demolition notices posted on illegal structures have, over the years, bred a multitude of recalcitrant land developers who have an insatiable appetite for infringing the law.
They have come to believe that these regulations will never be enforced and, therefore, it pays to treat such regulations with contempt.
It is, therefore, against this background that we single out for commendation a few of the MMDCEs, such as the Accra and Tema Metropolitan assemblies, for mustering the requisite political will, this time around, to rigorously enforce building regulations within their respective jurisdictions.
Largely, as a result of the demolition of structures hitherto sited on watercourses, the flood situation in Accra and Tema, in the face of these heavy rains, has been better managed than what used to be the widespread reports of flooding in virtually all areas previously.
It shows that with action, the right things can be done and the requisite results attained.
Let all of us take a cue from these actions and do the right things for our collective good.
We also believe that for planning and other public interest purposes, the Meteorological Service, which basically does the forecast of the weather, must be better equipped to make accurate weather forecasts to help facilitate better planning and preparations during the rainy season.
It would be recalled that in a forecast before the onset of the rains, the Meteorological Service predicted that the country would not experience much rains this year.However,this is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing already.
More accurate forecasts will, among other things, help us to prepare better for these floods and, thus, help prevent the costly loss of lives and the unnecessary destruction of property.