The Ministry disclosed that funds have been allocated for the desilting of drains as part of these efforts.

Speaking at a media engagement, the Director in charge of Policy Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PPBME) at the Ministry, Eric Tetteh-Addison, expressed concern over the failure of some MMDAs to implement adequate flood mitigation measures.

He emphasized that the Ministry would take punitive action against any Assemblies that neglect these directives.

“As the rain is about to come, the assemblies are supposed to begin desilting the choked gutters. Money has been released to the seventeen beneficiary assemblies of the GARID projects. Our expectation is that by now they should have started the desilting. From today, all those who have sited their properties along the buffers, they are supposed to go and remove them. The Ministry is not going to announce when it is coming”.

“But it is giving them a warning, that they are illegally siting their properties along the buffers so they should remove them. To the assemblies, it is their responsibility to ensure that these properties are not there, but if they sit and they wait and look on and these things are illegally sited there, the ministry is going to deal with all those assemblies involved,” Eric Tetteh-Addison said.