Dear World Bank,
I just read that you want to provide the Government of Ghana (GoG) full funding, to solve the perennial and devastating Accra floods in a project called Greater Accra Resilient Project (GARI Project). The report said you are committing $US200m to the first phase of the project, which will address “engineering shortfalls” and challenges with drainage systems.
Thank you for your good intentions, but loans and schemes like these, we have seen, complicate the problems, rather than solve them. This is not the first time we are hearing this, and it could be another failed project if we don’t re-think this approach:
What happened to the $595US million US based Export-Import (ExIm) Bank loan for the Accra Sanitary Sewer and Stormwater Drainage Alleviation Project, that was launched in 2012 with the promise to permanently fix the problem?
What legacy did the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP) funded by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development ($US84.40m) incrementally achieved as a contribution to the solution more than 20 yrs on? I can list numerous failed small projects with external support.
Today, we are reading from Ghana’s Minister of Works & Housing that we need a total of GHS7bn (about $US1.3bn) to solve the Accra flood problem. Can this solution be just about money? I doubt. Even if it were, Ghana is 62 yrs old and mature enough to internally mobilise funds to solve its own problems. In fact, we have heard and seen big monies go waste in this country, so I have no shred of doubt that we can find money in the system if we want to.
However, the point of this post is that this goes beyond throwing in money. Many African countries are in debt slavery because of you and your other Bretton Woods colleague called the IMF. Most of them have not even recovered from the adverse impacts of the neoliberal structural adjustment programs (SAPs) you rolled out in the region in the 1980s. Please would you rather in this case consider encouraging Ghana Government to:
1. Prioritise this issue of flooding and find money internally to fix it?
2. Make sure its leaders are committing to their own promises of solving problems? Our distinguished President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo promised that he will make Accra the cleanest city in Africa by 2020. I believe he had this issue in mind. With all due respect, did he not have a plan to tackle this problem?
3. Strengthen institutions to be accountable, transparent and sustainable to enforce and implement solutions, no matter how incremental they are. Every solution to a problem in Ghana is in Ghana not on a foreign land. There are enough competent urban planners, engineers, environmental technologists and diverse professionals who can help these institutions.
4. Listen to young people who want to serve this country, if the older people are failing. There is a new generation of Ghanaians not motivated by position or power, and not blinded by partisan politics. They are just driven by mere love for the country and the joy and fulfilment to solve problems. The leaders should identify and put them to work to help out.
Thank you.
Gideon Commey (Environmental activist)
