A lot of floods are caused by human activities – President orders action against building on waterways

President John Dramani Mahama has blamed human activity, specifically unlawful development and subpar environmental norms, for the current floods in Accra.

The President urged local officials to implement laws fearlessly and benevolently in order to avert future catastrophes while touring the capital’s flood-prone districts.

President Mahama observed a troubling instance of unlawful land use at Mallam Junction, where it was alleged that Caitec Motors had filled up a water retention basin—a space designed to collect excess rainfall and avoid flooding.

Mr. Stanislav Dogbe, the Deputy Chief of Staff in Charge of Operations and Chairman of the Anti-Flood Task Force, strongly condemned the company’s conduct and cautioned that the city’s flooding problem is made worse by such encroachments.

President Mahama responded by ordering the military to help the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) make sure that:

The water retention basin is desilted and put back to its original use by Caitec Motors.

To stop floods in the future, any unauthorized buildings constructed on Accra’s waterways are removed.

“So like I said on Eid ul-Fitr day at the Black Star Square, a lot of the flooding in the city is caused by human activity. We are the problem. What is happening here does not affect the factories here.

The water comes from somewhere and once it can pass and continue it will back up and affect the communities beyond. These are streams that existed long before our grandfathers were born. They are streams that flow from the Akwapim Mountains and find their way to the sea.

Then we decided to come and build our capital city across the streams. So even if you build your capital city you must allow the streams (

to flow through. People have built and blocked it. If you build and block a stream the water will come.

But when it comes and it can’t pass, what will it do? It will flood its banks. That’s all that is happening in the city and that’s why we’re asking the regional minister and the district chief executives to take a very tough stand on people whose properties are blocking waterways because they’re creating distraction for other people’s properties and even loss of lives.

Sometimes when it floods heavily we lose human lives and so it’s not because we don’t have a sympathy for people like that but we must enforce the bylaws.

And the point is the assembly here, how did you sit and allow this to happen? How did the assembly allow this to happen? And that’s why you have the chief executive, you have assembly members, they must be conscious of all this.

These are waterways like he said. Can you imagine the volume of water that this place alone can hold when it rains? And so if you fill it up and you say there should just be a drain passing through, the drain cannot contain that water.

And so let’s do what we have to do. They should remove all this and it should be at the cost of the people who did it.

They should take this back where they brought it from. Thank you”. The president said. 

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