Ghana’s political arena is like one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ novels you read as a kid. You choose from multiple scenarios as the story progresses, and with every wrong choice you go back and choose another option; and you rinse and repeat until you finally get a denouement that’s not as terrible as the ones you’ve already gone through.
Except in Ghana, you never get that perfect ending no matter how many times you go through the same steps.
It’s been raining in Accra all day, which has led to the occasional flooding issue that plagues Accra rearing its ugly head again. It’s been in the news all day, people whose settlements have flooded and have lost property and several other valuables.
Luckily this time, it has not claimed a life yet; but what it has done is put the media focus back on the issue, which in turn puts more pressure on the politicians who then have to make a kind of grandstand to prove how on top of issues they are.
The problem is, and this is why I started with the analogy I used; this happens every single year. The floods come, it claims lives and properties, draws media attention, politicians make some kind of gesture to show how they’re taking the issue seriously; and then it all goes away when the rain stops. Then all you have to do is what for the next round of heavy rains to hit the city and start the cycle up all over again.
We go through this every year because a lasting solution is never found for the situation, but rather quick fixes that cause more harm in the long run. Accra as a city is built wrong, several settlements are poorly planned, and the laissez-faire attitude of those in charge means people get to do whatever they want, build wherever they want.
And that is the root cause of this flooding issue. Several people have built on waterways, whilst in some cases whole towns are erected on a waterway. This constricts the movement of water and leads to the flooding that engulfs these settlements.
But we never attempt to find a permanent fix to this problem. Fixing the problem of flooding would require a commitment and political will to an operation that would take years to solve. The poor drainage system must be fixed, dumping of physical waste in gutters and other water ways must be fixed, and most importantly houses and towns blocking the flow of water must be razed down.
No government is going to sacrifice the time, resources, and political capital to attempt this fix; because as much as we suffer from the flooding, people are not ready to see their houses torn down. And the first two would require as much will on the part of the people as on the part of government. The government would prefer to stay in the good graces of the electorate by not demolishing their houses, and people would continue to build wherever they can without permits as long as the government does not stop them.
It is a catch-22 situation, one that cannot be solved without the will from all sides. But as long as people are willing to live in these areas, suffer the occasional inconvenience when it rains, and then go about their lives; we would be plagued with this problem. And as long as the government knows all they have to do when the city floods is make some grand gesture, pretend the flooding is their top priority for a week or two and everyone buys into it; we are not rid of the flooding just yet.
So the next week or so would see some pretence at fixing the issue, we would all rage at the government; and then everyone would move on when the rain stops and deal with the issue when it reappears sometime next year.