Open gutters archaic and passé, modern designs needed – Sanitation Minister-designate

The minister-designate for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah, has called for new designs to be developed in place of open gutters.

Responding to a question during her vetting before Parliament's Appointments Committee, the nominee said open gutters were archaic and passé, hence the need to phase them out.

“I think the open gutters, they are archaic, they are passé and we need to have a new design of roads engineering and one typical example is the one we have at the Agbobloshie market. It is a modern design and you see that the water passes through some things.

“You don’t have the open gutters for people to actually pour in rubbish or litter and I found one thing also during the course of my tour of all the MMDAs in Accra. These flying plastics as soon as they touch water they get stuck,” she added.

In other issues, she addressed the importance of open drains in curbing flooding in the country.

Asked whether Ghana needed covered drains, the nominee said that will mean exposing ourselves to flooding whenever it rained heavily.

“I had an engagement with him and I think he has taken it on board but with the drains, they are between Roads and Works and Housing (ministries) mainly, they have the hydro units to take care of that.

“But essentially that (drains) is for stormwater which we need to have to be able to control rainwater. You know we are in the tropical area and we need to have that,” she concluded.