By Love Wilhelmina Abanonave
President of the Chamber for Local Governance, Dr Richard Fiadomor, has blamed Ghana’s recurring flooding on a combination of citizen indiscipline, ineptitude at district assemblies and political interference that prevents the enforcement of building regulations.
Speaking on the causes of urban flooding on the GTV Breakfast Show on Monday, Mr Fiadomor said the Local Governance Act gives assemblies full authority over physical development, including the siting of containers and construction of buildings.
“We have a Local Governance Act which gives the assemblies the power of development control,” he said. “It gives the assemblies the power to permit any physical project to be done, including putting containers on land. You need a permit from the assemblies.”
He questioned how assemblies could claim ignorance of illegal structures.
Citing report findings, he said: “How would an assembly convince me that somebody is constructing a storey building? A storey building does not just break up like a mushroom in one day.”
Mr Fiadomor further said assemblies employ qualified professionals who are often prevented from enforcing the law due to political interference.
“There are well-trained engineers working at assemblies. These are professionals who know what they have to do at any time,” he said. “Yet sometimes when they see issues and want to take action, they are not allowed to act.”
He said the situation has forced civil servants into silence.
“It has also curled some of the civil servants and local government staff into submission,” he said. “Because if they see something not going right and they want to take action, you have political hands trying to do what it takes to transfer them.”
According to Mr Fiadomor, officials respond to disasters with site visits and reports, but no sanctions follow.
“So when a disaster happens like this, they will all pretend, go to the site and come and give us a report,” he said.
He criticised the pattern where collapsed buildings are later found to lack permits, despite assemblies being the issuing authority.
“So any time a building collapses, they will come and give a report that that building has no permit. And then the people who are telling us that that building has no permit, who is supposed to issue the permit?”
Fiadomor said the explanations have become repetitive.
“Reading some of these reports, it has become a cliché,” he said.
He suggested that the lack of action may benefit some actors.
“So for me, what is happening is that some people are benefiting from this flooding situation,” he said. “It appears we are a country that is happy about emotional sentimentalities rather than getting things done.”
