Over to you, Alban Bagbin!

I am tempted to believe that the torrential rains that came with the season (albeit, the earlier predictions of drought), is easing and that should be a huge relief for many citizens especially those living in flood prone areas of Accra, Swedru, Keta, and many parts of the Country.

Aside the destruction and the havoc the torrential rains have caused to life and property, I believe it is about time we considered housing and construction policy that harnessed the huge volume of rainfall year in and year out. I am sure that the destruction that the rains leave in their wake season after season would have been minimal but for human activities that impede the flow of surface and underground water at the onset of the season.

It is common k knowledge that many of us ignore warnings of the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (acting on behalf of government) to either pull down or stop the construction of structures in unapproved areas, especially on waterways, near dams, high tension masts, electricity poles, railway lines, streets, rivers and lagoons.

We are however quick to blame nature and even government for the woes that we suffer due to our own negligence as a result of our haphazard building and housing practices. There are areas in Ghana that should not and must not be used for any residential purpose but we ignore all cautions and develop these places. A case in point is the areas demarcated as earthquake zones along the Akwapim-Togo-Atakura ranges and the Mcarthy Hills area.

Take a walk to these places and u will be amazed at the fast pace of human earth movement activities in these areas. In the spur of the moment, residents around these disaster zones are having a field’s day and they have totally forgotten that their lives could change overnight in the case that the dreaded occurs to them. It is at that moment that our government would be running helter-skelter in search of relief items for victims.

A strict adherence to building and planning regulations, layouts and prohibitions would have saved us millions of cedis annually instead to going through the cycle of rebuilding and reconstruction after each rainy season.

In many of these instances, we are the cause of our own problems and yet we tend to believe that governments have done either little or nothing at all to help the situation. I am not sure there would be much to be done aside constructing drains within the limited spaces left of the waterways as a remedy to the situation which in the long run does very little to avert the chaos.

As the parliament of Ghana is lacing her boots to deal with the STX Ghana-Korean Housing Agreement which will help reduce the housing deficit in the country, it is important for the negotiators of this deal and the parliament of Ghana to ensure that the housing project incorporates a “rain-harvest scheme” that would help trap rain water for domestic consumption by those dwelling in the apartments.

I draw great inspiration from the Amedzofe Township in the Volta Region of Ghana, as to how a properly planned and managed rain harvest policy has kept the community water-sufficient till date. Amedzofe is the highest human settlement in Ghana. Mountain Gemi and the Amedzofe falls are two major tourist attractions that the community boasts of.

The high altitude of the area and the rugged nature of its topography make it very difficult for pipe-borne water to be supplied in the area so the community depends heavily on natural springs flowing in the mountains and the abundance of rain per the climate, for their water needs.

At the E.P Training College and the Amedzofe Guest House and many private residences in the township, right from Vane, Gbadzeame to Amedzofe, many of the property have water reservoirs buried under a portion of the buildings. It goes to say that the early Basel Missionaries who built the town, the college and the infrastructure there envisaged the water supply difficulties and adequately designed their buildings and structures to harness the abundance of the annual torrential rainfall for domestic and commercial use. In the rainy season, they shut their reservoirs and depend on the tasty natural springs for domestic consumption, while in the dry season when the pressure on the Springs are great, they augment their supply with harvested rain water until the rainy next season.

It would be a perfect replication of this ideal if the management of the STX Construction Company and the Government of Ghana agrees that in view of the unresolved pipe-borne water deficit that has hit the capital and many parts of the country, this agreement must as a matter of need, incorporate a rain-harvest component in the construction such that the apartments, when complete will have a good stock of water supply throughout the year for domestic use.

The company must established a central treatment and distribution point for the harvested rain to all apartments for domestic consumption so that we can move away from the over-dependence on the erratic pipe-borne water supply by the Ghana Water Company Limited and Aqua Vittens Rand Ltd. We could either directly consume the water of use the trapped water only for other purposes besides direct human consumption, i.e. washing of vehicles, watering the lawns and parks, fire fighting, water fountains, cleaning, laundry, etc .

The pressure then on pipe-borne water supply will be greatly reduced and conserved. Readers would bare me out that much of the water the flow in our taps are unclean and thus many prefer to drink sachet water and use the pipe-borne but use the tap water for other uses aside direct human consumption. The Ghana Water Company Limited must address this concern in other to restore public trust and confidence in the product of the company.

The enactment of government policy to tie the hands of building contractors and housing companies is paramount if indeed we are interested in resolving our water deficit while curtailing the havoc of annual torrential rains on our lives and property. The Ministry of Housing and water Resources headed by Honourable Alban Bagbin, must consider this as a matter of policy for consideration of cabinet before the STX deal is ratified.

It behoves on the Ministry to push this policy to the entire Housing and construction Industry not limited to STX-Korea only. The local industry heavily dominated by the likes of GREDA, Regimanuel Gray Ltd, Hydraform, Maria-O’Sullivan, HFC, etc must be brought under the policy which stipulates that all constructions projects (residential and office accommodation) must be provided with rain-gutters and Underground water reservoirs of a size commensurate with the size of the building.
If a policy of the sort existed during the Nkrumah Regime, I am sure that much of the surface water wastefully flowing into our polluted rivers and drains after every torrential rainfall would have been harvested or trapped and put into much more beneficial use. This would equally reduce the amount of money households spend on the purchase of water from water tanker operators while in the long run reduce the impact of flooding in some areas of the country.

A community that has made good this practise is the Dzodze-Penyi Township in the Ketu-North Constituency of the Volta Region of Ghana. For many decades, Dzodze-Penyi has no supply of pipe-borne water and the water table in the area is so deep that sank wells and boreholes are virtually dry or their contents unhygienic. The dwellers thus have constructed their own water reservoirs buried in the belly of the earth for the storage of water in the rainy season.

Dzodze and many of the surrounding communities dedicated to rain-harvest can only look forward to the rains with smiles as they know that they can only benefit from the blessing of nature, while many of us in the capital and elsewhere dread the onset of each rainy season. Some even pray to God to either reduce the volume of rains or altogether avert the consequences the heavy rains leave in its wake.

It is not late to introduce this idea into our Housing and construction policy in Ghana, with the full backing of the parliament of Ghana using the STX-Korean Housing Project as a starter and a pacesetter in the industry.

It is about time we did something about the abundance of rains in our atmosphere especially within the raining season to help address our water supply deficit and the harvesting of water for domestic and Industrial use as a matter of government policy.
Together, we can make change happen in Ghana if we pushed our parliament to consider this idea as a workable one so we can task the STX-Korean Housing Company to put it in fruition for the sake of the generation yet unborn. It will be a betrayal of trust for you and I to retire in our old age only to suffer the consequences of perennial torrential rains if we have the opportunity to make change the status quo in our generation.

The Consumer Protection Agency, the Civil Society organisations operating in the water sector, Chiefs, students Unions among other interest groups can support this dream so we can make it happen for mother Ghana.

By making rain-harvest a policy decision by this Mills administration and this Parliament, our generation would be remembered for delivering change in the Housing and Construction Industry that will benefit mother Ghana for many years to come. This is one sure way to trap the little drops of rain that run into crevices, gutters, drains, gullies and congregate into dangerous floods that kill, destroy and break our social and economic activities.

Over to you, Honourable Bagbin!