Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Mr. Kwesi Pratt Jr., says the inability of the country’s leaders to think and plan ahead is the cause of the perennial flooding in “our cities.”
Housing units in Accra in the colonial days, he said, had a system for harvesting rainwater.
That, according to him, helped reduce the volume of water that gathered to form flooding.
According to the veteran journalist, there is too much pressure on Ghana Water Company (GWC), a situation which was making it difficult for the company to meet the demands of Ghanaians.
This, the Insight managing editor said was due to the abandonment of water harvesting systems which use to be the practice in the olden days.
He made these observations over the weekend on Alhaji and Alhaji, a flagship programme of Accra-based Radio Gold FM, at the weekend.
“…that rainfall is creating havoc in the city because we have failed to think, plan and act to our interest. We have adopted new ways of doing things like building houses which is not helping us as a people,” he said.
He went on to explain that the new existing architectural development does not allow for bare ground and open gardens to absorb rain water.
Most houses in the city, he said, have concrete floors which do not allow water to be absorbed by the soil; adding “when that happens, water will force its way into our rooms anytime it rains".
He noted that most of “our major roads do not have drainage systems that collect water from the roads when it rains and that is why we see flooding on the streets.”
“It is not only houses that get flooded when it rains, even roads, markets. The ordinary Ghanaian can be blamed for building on waterways, but contractors and city authorities need to be questioned as to why our roads are getting flooded anytime it rains,” he added.
