Flooding as a result of heavy downpour during this raining season is widely something most inhabitants of Ghana look forward to. Particularly residents of Accra and other neighboring towns and villages are often expected to experience this phenomena.
This year’s rain showers has been no different as occupants are still cleaning up homes and struggling if possible to salvage belongings that are still drifting on the flood waters. Others could only stand and watch as flood waters destroyed their homes.
One can only imagine the devastation this frequent occurrence brings to citizens of the country. Lives have been perished and adding to this is the millions of Ghana cedis worth of properties that were also lost as a result of the heavy downpour.
Over the years quite a number of reasons have led to this social issue. But among the many causes that makes this time of the year a dreadful period to anticipate, rural-urban drift stands out as the major cause.
Majority of migrants who come to the urban cities often do so in search of job opportunities for improved standards of living and the opportunity to access good social amenities such as health care, education, electricity, better roads and other infrastructure just to name a few. Most migrants who travel to developed cities do not have homes that are readily available to live in once they arrive.
During their stay in the cities, migrants who come from far and near are compelled to put up illegal structures that are often along drains blocking the easy flow of rain waters from one point to the other. This structures on water ways has multiplied the state of flood effects to the point that seem almost impossible to deal with.
In 2015, calls made to government to tackle the problem prompted former president Mahama to respond by hinting in a statement the putting in place of adequate mechanisms in tackling the pending problem which seems to begging even after the demise of innocent civilians during the national disaster of June 3 that took lives in a gory fashion.
The current state of the population of Accra is rather alarming and experts say the numbers are expected to rise by the end of this year due to the influx of more rurals natives making residence in the capital.
In the meanwhile one will expect that desperate measures are put in place by government in order to accommodate these migrants whose quest of searching for greener pastures in the city would not be hinder in any way since the improvised conditions of the rural areas of Ghana are almost unbearable to cope.
One cannot avoid dense presence of migrants along the principal streets of Accra engaging in street hawking. These hawkers have no homes to go to after they end a day’s hustle and are forced to either sleep along the streets of Accra or forced to permanently put up these haphazard buildings along paths that are reserved for the passage of rain water.
A research conducted recently by People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements (PD) Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in a statement by a senior lecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Dr Prince k. Anokye revealed there are over 200 slums at various developmental stages in the capital currently.
He attributed the fast growth of informal settlements in capital and other big cities to the inability of migrants to find affordable housing when they moved down in search of jobs, and the high cost of land that prevented people from owning their own houses.
However, government must hold on the frequent demolishing exercises that have proven futile as it only relocates migrants from one stop to the other within the urban centres.
It is said that the best way in dealing with a problem is to confront it from the root. This being said government should make it a matter of priority in formulating policies that will develop rural areas. Projects such as the building of industries in rural centres in order to provide jobs for natives must be marked out as topmost priority to embark upon.
Also, basic social amenities such as good schools, road networks, electricity and good water supply must be extended to rural areas a well. The population of rural towns that make up the numbers of people who vote during elections must also be a factor to government when setting up developmental goals for the country’s nation building plan as a whole.
