Tema West Municipal Chief Executive, Felicia Edem Attipoe, has urged residents to refrain from building on waterways.
This appeal follows a downpour on Wednesday, May 22, which caused flooding in homes and submerged vehicles in parts of Accra.
During a visit to assess the impact of the flooding, the Municipal Chief Executive expressed concern over structures built on waterways.
She visited residents to assess the impact of Wednesday’s downpour and lamented the presence of structures built on waterways.
“Yesterday, it rained heavily, and today my team and I came here to see, and as it is, there are issues. Homes were flooded and all that. We decided to come and talk to them as well and see the impact. There are some issues that we need to address immediately. The assembly can quickly handle some matters, like drainage, and also hold a town hall meeting.
“And also talk to them about how best we can all collaborate and do the work well. What does the assembly have to do immediately is the drainage, today and tomorrow we will be fixing it.
“It’s more of communicating to them and letting them understand they don’t have to build on the water ways. They should understand and quickly evacuate immediately because I understand rains coming is quite serious. So, if we don’t evacuate immediately, there will be issues. We have to get the people involved, communicate to them, make them understand and we take it up from there.”
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) noted that many of the houses were constructed by individuals without expertise.
She pledged to ensure that the drainage system in the area is properly dredged and maintained and urged residents to support these efforts.
“We’re on the ground, we are here to serve the people, and we will make sure that everybody is comfortable. But we also need the residents’ support. Everybody wants to build, and yes, it’s good to build, but are you building the right way? Are you building in the right place? I urge residents that our doors are open, they should come and discuss with us.
“We realized that most of the buildings were constructed by non-experts; they just get people to do it without permits, and it is causing problems. We have to do the dredging, and some have built close to the drainage. When we do the dredging, where are we going to put the materials? And these are buffer lands people have built on.”
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