Apowa (WR), The Western Regional Minister, Mr Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, has visited some communities in the Ahanta West Municipality (AWMA) of the Region which were hard hit by a flood after a downpour on Tuesday.
The Minister and his team visited the St Mary’s Boys Senior High School stretch of the Agona Ahanta road, the Apowa community, Airport Ridge, and Racecourse areas.
Mr Darko-Mensah indicated that his office was ever ready to make sure every road and highway became accessible for safe transportation especially, in this difficult time of the flood.
The Minister who identified some of the engineering problems in the communities tasked the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ahanta West Municipality to deploy his engineers to access the situation and come up with swift and effective measures to curtail the problem.
Mr Darko-Mensah was accompanied by the MCE for the Ahanta West Municipality, Mr John Agyare, District Chief Executive (DCE) of Mpohor, Mr Ignatius Asaah Mensah, Western Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Abdul Ganiyu and some officials from the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and AWMA.
The heavy downpour of rain caused a huge outflow of water unto the road at the St Mary’s Boys Senior High School stretch of the Agona Ahanta road. This compelled drivers to use routes from Apremdo inside before reaching Apowa.
The hope of passengers who wanted to get a vehicle from Takoradi to Agona Nkwanta, Bogoso, Axim, Tarkwa and Elubo among others were also dashed after several hours of rain as vehicles plying those routes were stopped at Ewusijoe due to the floods.
Water had taken over the road linking Apowa to Agona Nkwanta and the drivers were not able to make their way through the running water leaving passengers to their fate at the lorry stations.
Later in an interview with the Regional NADMO Coordinator, Mr Abdul Ganiyu, he commended the Minister for going out to assess the situation and advised the people to be careful whenever it rained to avoid disaster.
He told the GNA that they identified small receptive drains in the area which made it difficult to receive the quantum of water that passed through the area and said the drains needed to be expanded to be able to contain the amount of water that run through the area.
He lamented the situation where swampy areas at the Racecourse had been issued with permits to put up buildings on them thereby making it difficult for free flow of water in the area resulting in the flood situation.
Source: Ghana News Agency
