Flash floods last Friday left the Obetsebi-Lamptey Interchange and its environs at Abossey Okai on the Ring Road West in Accra submerged, creating fear and panic among residents as the ravaging waters found their way anywhere possible.
The two-hour torrential rains, accompanied by high winds and thunderstorms, did not only cause gridlock, but also left commuters with no other option than abandoning their vehicles and running to safety.
Some residents with properties close to the interchange were forced to seek safety on top of the first-tier of the interchange under construction and other high-rise properties they could find.
In spite of the severity of the flooding, which was described as unprecedented in the area, it receded in a matter of minutes after the rains, but left a muddy and corrugated surface that created a go-slow for motorists.
The situation caused mixed reactions because while some blamed the ongoing construction of the drains by the interchange, others claimed that portions of the drains done rather helped them.
In an interview with the Ghanaian Times, a car tyre dealer, Yunus Ali, said he and some others were lucky a drain had been created in front of their shops, which served as an outlet for the water to flow away else their shops would have been flooded.
He said every major rain flooded the area and appealed to the government to support the contractor to speed up work.
A resident, Zainab Abubakar, urged the contractors to speed up with the drainage works to bring an end to the problem.
Mr Dwamena Boakye, a tyre dealer at Kaneshie-Pamprom in the Abossey-Okai enclave, said they had come to accept the flooding, and prayed that the drainage is completed “as a matter of urgency”.
A spare parts dealer, Mr David Ofori, said, “Speeding up the construction of the major drains in the area and the completion of the project would help bring an end to the problem.”
Meanwhile, the resident engineer, Mr Owusu Sekyere Antwi, has told the Ghanaian Times that 86 per cent of work had been completed, and the contractor is currently working on the major drains on the Ring Road towards Korle-Bu and near the Mosque, Abosey-Okai Central.
He said the contractor had given the assurance that the project would be completed and handed over in September this year.
The major works left to be done, Mr Antwi explained, included completion of the box culverts on the Kaneshie roundabout, the bridge deck from the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Korle-Bu, and the ground works.
Mr Antwi said the public had already been informed on impending road closures to speed up the ground works, the most difficult aspect due to interruptions of rain and human activity.
The resident engineer hinted that the Lands Commission had given approval for payment of compensation to people whose properties had been touched as a result of the project.
The objective of the interchange is to alleviate traffic congestion occurring at the intersection of the Ring Road West and Winneba/Graphic Road by upgrading the roundabout and developing two-flyovers to allow continuous flow of traffic.
The first fly-over had been completed and opened to motorists as part of the first phase, but the second phase that comes with the other fly-over had stalled due to Ghana’s debt restructuring programme.
Resumption of work on the second phase rather appears slow in the eyes of a section of the public.
BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA AKPALU & RAISSA SAMBOU
