AMA, crack whip on polluters
We return to the issue of sanitation in Accra and other parts of the country in the wake of the rainy season.
Following the devastation caused by last Thursday’s rain in Accra and other parts of the country, concerns are being expressed about our disaster preparedness.
From time immemorial, anytime it rains or some natural phenomenon occurs, the agencies responsible for humanitarian relief and rescue operations are always caught unprepared.
When that happens, and typical of the Ghanaian, nobody is held responsible for our shortcomings. The tendency is to pass the buck to others, or in the case of floods in Accra, blame it on our poor attitude to environmental cleanliness.
Yes, there is a problem with our attitude towards everything, particularly environmental cleanliness and even personal hygiene, but leadership must drive the change in mindset towards the environment.
The health authorities have warned of the possible outbreak of cholera and other such epidemic during the rainy season if residents of especially Accra continue to disregard the essence of environmental cleanliness to attain the principle behind the dictum: “Cleanliness is next to godliness”.
In order to avoid the kind of pain suffered by residents of Accra last Thursday, the Daily Graphic daresay that certain drastic actions must be taken by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the government to remove certain structures that are standing in the way of storm drains and other such public works needed to allow for the free flow of rainwater and flood waters.
We never miss the opportunity to remind ourselves that certain unscrupulous people have erected structures on watercourses, thereby creating conditions for flooding in many low-lying areas of Accra and other parts of the country.
The Daily Graphic expected the city authorities that have the mandate to allow for the erection of physical structures in Accra to have by now ordered the demolition of those structures on watercourses and at other unauthorised places.
Until we learn to do the right thing and also desist from begging on behalf of those who deviate from the norms of society, we will not make progress in Ghana. We shall, like the proverbial vulture, be alert only after the disaster and go to sleep immediately thereafter.
The President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, was spot on last Friday when he condemned the indiscriminate dumping of waste in the capital and said that negative practice was a major contributory factor to the flooding in Accra.
He charged the AMA to make education on sanitation a major programme, so that the people would live up to their responsibilities.
The Daily Graphic hopes the AMA will heed the call by the President to educate the people on their civic responsibilities.
In addition, the AMA must crack the whip on those who flout its bye-laws.
For far too long the bye-laws of the AMA and other assemblies have remained paper tigers, unable to deter people from wrongdoing.
The AMA can only stay on course to achieve its agenda of making Accra a millennium city if its bye-laws bite deep to deter people from turning the city into a big slum.
