As part of efforts to deal with flooding in Accra, the Ministry of Works and Housing acquired a Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) that will provide advance notice of impending flooding for the protection of vulnerable communities.
But two and a half years after the acquisition of the $7 million "state-of-the-art" equipment and handover to four institutions implementing the Accra Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) project, the warning system is still not operational, the Project Coordinator for the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) project, Dr Kwadwo Ohene Sarfoh, has said.
The beneficiary institutions are the Ghana Hydrological Authority, Ghana Meteorological Agency, National Disaster Management Organisation and Water Resources Commission.
The $7 million state-of-the-art equipment includes ultrasonic water level sensors, velocity radar sensors with cameras and acoustic doppler current profiler which would collect and transmit water levels and runoff volumes.
Others are tipping bucket rain gauges, automatic weather stations which will collect and transmit the amount and intensity of rainfall, temperature, humidity and other meteorological parameters.
The rest are information technology (IT) equipment to support in the coordination and dissemination of information and data under the project.
A number of the equipment were to be installed in some selected communities across the Greater Accra Region, the Ministry of Works and Housing announced in December 2023 when it handed over the equipment.
Read also: Ministry hands over flood early warning equipment
He was speaking in a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra-based Joy FM on Tuesday morning following fresh flooding in parts of Accra on Monday.
Dr Kwadwo Ohene Sarfoh said the Flood Early Warning System for Greater Accra (FEWS-Accra) was still undergoing testing and had not yet been deployed for public use.
Dr Ohene Sarfoh said the project team was still working on how flood alerts would be sent to the public, including testing the use of SMS messages through telecommunications companies.
His comment came a day after flooding affected parts of Accra, prompting the Ministry of the Interior to issue a public safety advisory on Monday, June 29, 2026.
The ministry advised residents who required emergency assistance to contact the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana National Fire Service or the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).
Responding to questions about why many residents appeared not to have received official warnings before the flooding, Dr Ohene Sarfoh said the technical infrastructure, including automatic weather stations and data transmission systems, was functioning and supplying information to the relevant agencies.
He explained that the public alert component had not yet been fully integrated into the system, making FEWS-Accra not fully operational.
He said the project team expected the system to be ready within the next two to three months.
Dr Ohene Sarfoh said the Ghana Hydrological Authority, the Ghana Meteorological Agency and NADMO were currently responsible for issuing flood alerts. According to him, those agencies issued warnings ahead of the recent flooding.
Under the project's original plans, FEWS-Accra was expected to become fully operational before the 2025 rainy season. Equipment, including water level sensors, weather stations and rain gauges valued at about US$7 million, were handed over to the beneficiary agencies in December 2023.
The system was developed with technical support from Dutch firm HKV and is expected to be hosted by the Ghana Meteorological Agency, with a backup system at the Ghana Hydrological Authority.
The World Bank-funded GARID project is being implemented in 17 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies along the Odaw River.
It is being carried out by the Ministry of Works, Housing and Water Resources in coordination with the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs.
