NADMO Calls On Government To Allocate Funds For Waterbodies Distillation

The National Disaster Management Organization, NADMO is urging government to allocate funds for desilting rivers and other waterbodies.

According to the NADMO Director-General, Eric Nana Agyeman Prempeh, weeds, refuse and sand in our river bodies is a major cause of floods across the country. He noted that engaging in a desilting exercise will enable the free flow of water which will reduce issues of flooding across the country.

On a tour in the Ashanti region, he visited Ahodwo Daaban, Ejisu and Ahinsan where people were casually building and blocking waterways.

He stated that Government was collaborating with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regional ministers and assemblies, to implement the order by the president Akufo-Addo, to demolish all buildings on waterways.

“We’ve gone around, and going around, you realize that, people are filling buffers, rivers, wetlands among others, which is very bad. At Ahinsan Estate, we realized there is a wall at the back of KNUST, you see that people want to encroach. We are going to talk to the city authorities that we should not allow anybody to build there because that is the only buffer zone we have for the rivers over there. If they encroach at the end of the day, it is going to bring a problem. We saw a part where people have built some shops and other things, and it is giving the city of Kumasi a lot of flooding problems.”

“People are building anywhere. We have to go beyond the politics – the NPP and NDC politics. Today when you go and someone is filling and building in waterways, they will say because I am an NDC that’s why you are attacking me. If it is an NPP person, he will say it is because I am an PP person, that’s why you are attacking me. I think we need to desist from that,” Mr Agyemang Prempeh stated.

He is therefore charging government to make resources available for the exercise to the ministry of works and housing to reduce flooding in the coming days.