Yesterday, the Greater Accra Regional Security Council served a 21-day notice to several beachfront businesses at Laboma Beach to vacate or face demolition.
Pink Flamingo, ULA Beach Club, Trophy, Bliss Escape, Amsterdam Kitchen, Si Beach Resort, Alora Beach Resort and others are affected.
The reason is simple and urgent: they are sited on the buffer zone meant for the Kpeshie Lagoon.
Their continued presence is worsening the flooding situation, blocking water flow and putting lives and property at risk.
This is not the first time the issue has been raised.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Ocloo, said some developers were cautioned at the foundation stage but they ignored the warning.
“People sometimes just push us and call you all kinds of names,” she noted.
That defiance has come at a cost.
When structures go up in watercourses and buffer zones, water has nowhere to go during heavy rains.
The result is what Accra experienced in June: flooded partly because water could not flow through the back end of a bridge, and a lagoon system choked by buildings and silt.
REGSEC has now given occupants 21 days to demolish the structures themselves.
After that, the 48 Engineer Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces, with a flood task force, will move in.
Costs will be recovered from the owners.
Resistance will result in arrest.
It is harsh, but necessary. For too long, enforcement officers have been “overpowered on sites.
The state cannot cede its authority to lawlessness.
A buffer zone is not empty land waiting to be developed.
It is infrastructure.
It is the space that allows a lagoon to breathe, for water to settle and gradually flow into the sea.
When we build in it, we are building in the path of water.
The Ghana Hydrological Authority will now assess the extent of encroachment on the Kpeshie Lagoon.
The Lands Commission has also confirmed what should be obvious: the area has not been rezoned for residential or recreational use. It remains a lagoon.
Wetlands perform critical functions.
They absorb floodwater, filter pollutants, support fisheries and protect coastal communities.
Losing them means more flooding, more erosion and more public spending on disaster response.
The Government says it will also dredge heavily silted paths and remove boulders obstructing the watercourse.
That is welcome. But dredging alone cannot work if we keep narrowing the channel with concrete.
Laboma is not an isolated case.
Across Greater Accra, wetlands, drains and watercourses have been encroached upon by homes, shops, and leisure facilities.
Each new structure seems small.
Together, they create a crisis.
Part of the problem is slow enforcement.
Another part is the perception that with enough influence, rules can be ignored.
The 21-day notice must, therefore, be applied fairly.
It cannot be one rule for the big club and another for the small kiosk.
REGSEC’s decision to take direct control, with military engineers leading, signals seriousness.
But the goal should not just be demolition
It should be restoration.
We understand the concern of business owners and workers at Laboma.
Hospitality creates jobs and revenue.
But sustainable tourism cannot thrive on a flooded, eroding beach.
The answer is planned development.
The Government, with the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly, should identify areas outside the buffer that can be developed for recreation with proper permits, drainage and environmental impact assessments.
Investors who observe the law should not be punished because others broke it.
The long-term plan must also include community education.
Residents around Kpeshie Lagoon must see the lagoon not as wasteland to be filled, but as an asset that protects them from floods.
The June floods were a reminder.
Climate change is making our rains heavier and less predictable.
We cannot afford to keep building in the way of water and then ask the Government to rescue us every rainy seaso.
Mrs Ocloo’s statement — “We cannot sit aloof to lose the wetlands” — must become policy across all 16 regions.
Wetlands, forest reserves and water bodies are not negotiable.
The 21 days given to Laboma encroachers is a deadline, but it is also an opportunity.
An opportunity for voluntary compliance.
An opportunity for the state to show that rules matter.
An opportunity to reclaim a piece of Accra’s natural defence system.
Demolition is never pleasant.
But neither is watching homes and businesses being destroyed by preventable floods.
REGSEC must carry out this exercise with firmness and fairness.
No sacred cows. No last-minute exemptions.
And after the bulldozers leave, the real work begins: restore the buffer, protect it, and ensure that Kpeshie Lagoon can do what it was designed to do.
Laboma Beach can still be a place for leisure.
But it must first be a place where water can flow.
The 21-day clock is ticking. Let us use it wisely.
