COLLABORATE MORE TO AVERT DISASTERS ...World Bank Director urges govt, assemblies (SPREAD, JUNE 25, 2010)

THE World Bank Country Director, Mr Ishac Diwan, has called for deeper collaboration among the people, the government and metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to avert future disasters such as last Sunday’s widespread floods.
According to him, the rate of urbanisation and the subsequent springing up of dwelling places in the major cities across the country needed to be tackled by all stakeholders to ensure the proper management of land and other natural resources.
Mr Diwan made the call when he accompanied the Deputy Local Government Minister, Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, and a team of experts on a tour of some of the areas in Tema and Ashaiman which were devastated by Sunday’s floods.
He pledged his outfit’s preparedness to bring on board donor agencies to assist the victims of the disaster.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah announced that a governmental committee would be set up to investigate the cause of the floods, which claimed 35 lives and left over 20,000 people displaced.
The committee, according to him, would be tasked to take an inventory of the event and also recommend appropriate solutions aimed at reducing its occurrence.
He stated that the World Bank had been a major financier of the ministry’s urban, environmental and sanitation projects, saying that explained the government’s decision to involve officials of the bank in the reconstruction exercise to ensure accurate audit for the displaced persons.
The deputy minister was accompanied by a technical team from the ministry, a Minister of State at the Presidency and Member of Parliament for Kpone Katamanso, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Kempes Ofosuware, among other assembly officials.
At Ashaiman Jericho, where the team first visited, the deputy minister told Mr Diwan that various buildings sited along the Gbemi stream in the municipality and the subsequent choking of drains led to a spillover of the floods into several homes.
He added that the breakdown of the Katamanso Dam also caused the water to spill over to the Ashaiman irrigation site affecting the entire community.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah said the Katamanso Dam, which received water from Aburi through Amrahia and Adenta, needed to be dredged.
He commended the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) for taking proactive measures to resettle displaced persons.
Mr Afotey-Agbo reiterated the call for structures on watercourses to be cleared and funding to be secured for the dredging of the Katamanso Dam.
Mr Ofosuware, for his part, expressed regret at the conflicting roles of the assembly and the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), saying that it contributed to the disaster experienced at Tema Community 5 and parts of Sakumono.
According to him, although residents of the affected areas did not have permits that allowed the siting of their structures in the area, they possessed documents that guaranteed that the TDC had granted them entry to the sites.
He called for a collaborative effort from the TDC to ensure that the sale of land and the issuance of building permits were carried out through the appropriate structures.