Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) must strictly enforce existing planning and environmental laws to address the perennial flooding recorded across the country, the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), Mr Michael Harry Yamson, has urged.
He said the failure to enforce the laws had contributed to the recurring floods experienced in many parts of the country during heavy rainfall.
“The country already has the legal framework, institutions and financing mechanisms needed to address perennial flooding, but weak enforcement, poor coordination and political interference continue to undermine efforts to protect lives and properties,” Mr Yamson said.
Mr Yamson made the call in an article circulated to all MMDAs and copied to The Ghanaian Times yesterday.
According to him, the MMDAs should exercise the powers vested in them under the Constitution and enforce existing laws on sanitation rather than focusing on new policies.
Mr Yamson said that the MMDAs were empowered under the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) and the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016 ( 925), to issue stop-work orders, abatement notices and undertake lawful demolition of unauthorised structures, provided due process was followed.
“The flood are not waiting for new laws. The mandate is already yours. Use it,” he stressed, while citing the National Anti-Flood Taskforce established by the government to coordinate flood mitigation efforts involving key ministries and agencies,” Mr Yamson said.
Additionally, he noted that the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Programme, financed by the World Bank with more than USD 350 million, was already implementing major dredging infrastructure, including dredging of the Odaw Basin, channel improvement works, detention ponds, and rehabilitation of pump stations.
Mr Yamson reminded the MMDAs that President John Dramani Mahama’s directive to channel 80 per cent of the DACF allocations to MMDAs was intended to strengthen local capacity to undertake drainage and sanitation.
He therefore urged MMDAs to prioritise drain desilting, culvert maintenance, local drainage construction, and the integration of community drainage systems into larger national flood control infrastructure.
Mr Yamson further called on MMDAs to enforce riparian buffer zone regulations, identify and remove illegal structures obstructing waterways in accordance with the law, and integrate flood resilience into their Medium-Term Development Plans.
BY TIMES REPORTER
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