Works and Housing Minister Outlines Plans to Tackle Flooding

WORKS AND HOUSING MINISTER OUTLINES PLANS TO TACKLE FLOODING

The Honourable Minister of Works and Housing, Samuel Atta Akyea, has outlined measures being put in place by the Ministry to mitigate Odaw and other channels from flooding during this year’s and subsequent rains.

He said the Ministry through the Hydrological Services Department, has embarked on works across the country ahead of the raining season to mitigate flooding in some of the flood prone areas.

The Minister revealed this during an interaction with the media in Accra.According to the Hon. Minister, works are being executed under the Ministry’s 2018 Flood Relief Works Programme.

Under the programme he said contracts have been awarded for improvement works to be carried out on critical drains such as concrete lining of selected drains, reconstruction of selected culverts which sizes are inadequate and as such have become bottlenecks in the drainage channels.

On the issue of Odaw river which has been causing perennial flooding in parts of the nation’s capital, the Minister disclosed that channel improvement works have begun on some sections of the channel. The excavation to create channels in areas where channels are undefined and also dredging and desilting of silted channels.

According to the Minister, areas to undergo the improvement works include Agbogba, Achimota, Legon Westlands, Pantang, Haatso, Kwabenya, South Kaneshie, Nima and Oyarifa.

He disclosed that the Ministry has engaged Dredge Masters to dredge the lower section of the Odaw channel from Caprice to the outfall sea bridge and works are expected to commence soon ahead of the rains.

The Honourable Minister assured Ghanaians that the perennial flooding in the Greater Accra Region will soon be a thing of the past as government has sought assistance from the World Bank under the Greater Accra Climate Resilience and Integrated Development (GARID) Project to provide permanent solutions to the flooding issues.

He explained that under the GARID project, there will be construction of detention ponds, flood plain lowering, channel expansion, flood zoning and flood early warning systems among others which in total, will provide permanent solution to the flooding problems in the capital city.

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