Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, the Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation, and Rural Development, has called on city planners to redesign drainage systems to address water management challenges.
The minister, addressing the media, emphasised that existing settlements face issues due to inadequate drain sizes, leading to problems when heavy volumes of water flow in.
This follows recent pockets of flooding across Accra after heavy downpours, leaving residents vulnerable whenever it rains.
Mr Korsah called for the redesign and reorganisation of settlements to improve water drainage.
“As we go, as a country, you, in pursuit of development, have to redesign, reorganise and so a settlement that, for me, had less challenges with water due to the drain size. Once human settlements come in, the volumes that we see, then that becomes a problem.
“The GARIDS programme takes care of that by expanding or replacing drains that are smaller so that it can effectively do so. In other areas, they must cover it because, between some communities, there are storm drains left, and it’s quite dangerous if anybody falls off the goal.
“So all of those are part of it, but that’s left to the technical people to, case by case, decide what has to be done. And that’s the work of the city planners.
