By Philip Tengzu
Wa, (UW/R), July 18, GNA – Mr Mustapha Ahmed, the Upper West Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), has appealed to Parliament to pass a law to mandate NADMO to be responsible for granting permits for the construction of buildings in the country.
He said that would prevent the building of houses and other structures on waterways and water-logged areas to check the perennial flooding menaces that affect the lives and property of residents.
Mr Ahmed indicated that per the National Disaster Management Organisation Act, 2016, (Act 927), NADMO could only give recommendations but the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) which were the enforcement agencies had the authority to consider or reject those recommendations.
“We are only hoping and praying that the Ministry of Interior and the Ministries of Works and Housing and the Local Government should come together and grant NADMO the opportunity to grant building permits.
When this is done NADMO will have no reason to tell you that people are building on waterways, it will be our duty to block people from building on waterways,” he explained.
Mr Ahmed said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa in the wake of flood incidents that were recorded in Wa about two weeks ago following a heavy downpour and the need to take action to prevent such disasters in the future.
He said the floods in Wa were a result of human activities including building on waterways and poor sanitation practices such as indiscriminate dumping of refuse, which choked the gutters and blocked the free flow of water anytime it rained.
He said people built on waterways due to poor supervision by the assemblies and their failure to enforce regulations on the issuance of building permits, which put the lives of innocent people in danger.
“Whenever it rains (and there is flood) people do not go to the assembly, they ran to me. People who work at the assembly go to sleep, but I don’t sleep.
So, autonomy should be given to NADMO to give building permits to developers and to block people from building on waterways,” he said.
He said his outfit was carrying out community and public sensitisations to educate the public on the precautions to take to avoid flooding or its impact when it occurred.
Mr Ahmed explained that the Wa Municipal Assembly had not considered the fast-growing pace of the municipality to take the necessary steps to match with the fast development pace including the construction of improved drainage systems.
“It was a district and now a municipality. Now we are targeting the status of a metropolis so the number of gutters and culverts that are within the municipality ought to be looked at,” he stated.
Mr Ahmed commended the Upper West Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, for acting on the recommendations of NADMO by facilitating the construction of improved drainage systems in some parts of the Wa township.
GNA