Dredging of Odaw River, Korle Lagoon begins

The government has taken steps to dredge the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon as part of interventions to prevent flood disasters similar to that of June 3, 2015.

As a result, the government has contracted Dredging Masters Limited, a subsidiary of Jospong Group of Companies, to dredge the two water bodies and their channels.

The Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, assured members of the public that the government was collaborating with its stakeholders to ensure that medium-term intervention measures were instituted prior to the rainy season to avert a similar flood disaster.

He said this when he led a team from the ministry to inspect ongoing dredging of the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon.

The Daily Graphic during the visit observed that heavy duty equipment, including water masters and excavators, busily clearing sand and other waste materials from the drains.

“Flooding seems to be an annual affair in Accra but what happened on June 3, 2015 should be a wake-up call for all stakeholders and as a government we are determined to fix the problem and avert a similar occurrence,” Dr Agyeman-Mensah said.

Government is sourcing funds

Dr Agyeman-Mensah said the government was in the process of sourcing funds to the tune of $600 million to be able to effectively free the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon as part of long-term intervention measures.

Meanwhile, he said, in the medium- term, Jospong had agreed to pre-finance the dredging to some extent prior to the onset of the rains to help avert any disaster as occurred on the June 3, 2015.

He appealed to the public to desist from throwing garbage into water bodies and called on all district assemblies to enforce all sanitation bye-laws without compromise.

Addressing the media after the tour, the Registrar of the Engineering Council, Mr Wise Ametefe, said he could not give the exact cost of the medium-term projects at the time of the tour but said it was, however, less than one million dollars.

According to him, the whole project was expected to take two years but the freeing of the water bodies, which comprised the medium-term measures, to make way for the free flow of rain waters during the rainy season, would be done by the end of April this year.

No flood disasters again

Mr Ametefe attributed the June 3 flood disaster to, among other causes, stakeholders’ failure to desilt or free major drains and choked water bodies.

“This year we have taken steps to do that and with the level of work done currently, we are optimistic that this year there will be no floods or flood disasters, unless the rainfall is far more than last year,” he said.

Background

Annually flood waters bring disaster to residents of Accra. The floods have always been attributed to drains filled with silt, plastic and other forms of waste.

On June 3, 2015, as many as 200 Ghanaians lost their lives as a result of flood and an inferno that gutted a petroleum filling station near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.

Members of the public and some authorities attributed the flood disaster to the failure on the part of stakeholders to desilt the Odaw River and the Korle Lagoon.

Successive governments and stakeholders have made several attempts to dredge the two water bodies and restore them to their original status but all such efforts over the years had not been fruitful.

Writers email Doreen.andoh@graphic.com.gh