Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday, June 08, 2015
Two powerful
institutions have waded into last Wednesday, June 3 devastating floods cum fire
outbreak that killed about 200 people in Accra.
The Ghana Bar
Association (GBA) and the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference both issued
separate statements lamenting the lack of proper planning coupled with
indiscipline that is accounting for some of the disasters.
The GBA statement was jointly
signed by Nene A. Amegatcher, President and Justin A. Amenuvor, Secretary while
the Bishop’s statement was signed by Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu, Bishop of
Konongo-Mampong and President of the Conference.
The GBA called for speedy
investigations into the tragic incident saying “It is the view of the GBA that
the problem of indiscipline and sanitation should be dealt with as a matter of
urgency and without further delay.”
They said “The GBA would wish to
take this opportunity to call for a comprehensive and non-partisan approach to
tackling and resolving the problems.”
Lip service
The association said it was time
for government to stop paying “lip service to the hackneyed phrase of ‘building
strong institution’, the law must be allowed to work,’ et cetera”
It called on the judiciary, MMDAs “to
ruthlessly apply the law; the NCCE in conjunction with the ISD to constantly sensitize
and educate the populace on matters relating to sanitation; Parliament to
review the laws on building and the environmental and non-partisan approach
encourage the Executive and the Judiciary to do the needful to remove all
offending structures in waterways especially in towns and cities.
Long-Term Planning
On the
part of the Bishops, said “We
think that as a nation, we have not done well over the years with our long-term
planning in our response to the perennial flooding in Accra and other parts of
Ghana.”
“Time without number,
our capital city has suffered the ignominy of being inundated with floods
leaving in its wake massive destruction of property and human casualties. For
all this time, what we have witnessed is government officials and ministers
visiting flood scenes to commiserate with victims and to make long and empty
promises to fix the situation,” they said.
The Bishops also
added that “Year in and year out, the same situation keeps recurring without
any concrete practical steps being taken to address it holistically. This
latest incident should be a wake-up call for us to be up and doing and not only
pay lip service to the phenomenon of flooding in Ghana.”
Re-Planning
“Much has been said about
planning and we dare say that Accra and other cities of our dear nation needs
re-planning. Town and City Planning authorities need to be up and doing.
They said “We think
that building permits should not be given to people to build houses on water courses.
Those who flout such building regulations must be dealt with according to the
law.”
“Every Ghanaian must
be ready to learn and accept the fact that when we flout our laws, we will all
one day inevitably face the consequences of such an act.”
The institutions both
expressed their condolences to the bereaved.
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