The Urban Roads Department has attributed the flooding on the Kasoa-Weija road on Sunday to poor land use and residential activities of people living in the area.
The road was rendered almost impassable following the torrential rain at the weekend forcing drivers to convert the highway into a one-way road.
[contextly_sidebar id=”atUuP0On98owvbGAXcbMtOgPyApPZJbM”]The floods caused heavy traffic on the highway, with reports indicating that for over six hours, vehicles going towards Kasoa couldn’t go beyond the Weija SCC traffic light.
The Director of the Urban Roads Department Alhaji Abass Awolu blamed the massive flooding on the ‘changing land use’ by residents in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday.
“We have the Osiadan concrete block works coming from Kasoa. But behind that people are burrowing into the mountain. If you go there now, people are really changing the land use there. That used to be a green area. Unfortunately, people go into the mountain, they dig it and they build houses there. They put all sorts of things there. Once you go into the mountain and you cut the mountain, you loosen the materials. Any little downpour, it washes that material into the road, that is what we have having now,” he said.
Alhaji Awolu stated that the Department has held discussions with the Ghana Roads and Highway Authority to find ways to address the problem.
However, he lamented that until a lasting situation is found, the flooding similar to Sunday’s might become commonplace on the highway.
“We have had various discussions with all the relevant stakeholders including the Ghana Highway Authority to see how best we can control such changing land use. Currently we have a challenge. Because the land use there is being changed, people are going into the mountains and cutting. The mountain virtually now does not exist. They go onto the mountain They’ve taken out the materials and everything is on the road and when it rains the whole place floods.”
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline..com/Ghana
Follow @EdKwakofi