IN spite of the damage caused to their homes and property worth millions of Ghana cedis, some of the people who were displaced by floods at Buipe in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region are rebuilding their homes on the flood plains of the Black Volta.
The likelihood of another flood disaster is imminent if the intensity of the rains this year is closer to or surpasses what happened last year.
Masons are on site in some parts of the Buipe bridge area busily reconstructing collapsed houses and putting up new ones. Unfortunately, some of these buildings are constructed with mud.
The Daily Graphic questioned some of the landlords why they were refusing to move and they were unanimous in stating that they had lived in that area for many years.
“This is where I was born and I have lived here since then. There have never been floods so devastating like last year’s. I don’t think it would occur again,” Afa Abdulai, a landlord, stated.
“This area is the main business area of Buipe and so we live and do business here. We cannot afford to move from here,” another landlord, Mr Abudu Mohammed, also remarked.
In an interview, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Central Gonja, Mr Salisu Be-Awuribe, revealed that the assembly was instituting a long-term measure that would ensure the permanent relocation of the people living on the flood plains.
“We are currently redesigning the Buipe Planning Scheme and it would involve relocating inhabitants who live close to the river banks to safer grounds,” he stated.
Mr Be-Awuribe said the assembly had engaged the chiefs and entreated them to release lands to facilitate the resettlement process.
He stated that the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) was also designing a flood mitigation strategy for the northern sector of the country and would soon implement it, if funds were available.
Meanwhile, many parts around the Buipe bridge, closer to the banks of the Black Volta, still remain under water although it is over 10 weeks since the floods occurred.
The water is receding at a slow pace and some of the displaced persons are still lodging in temporary camps provided by the assembly.
The floods have also left in its wake, a sanitation menace, as the only two public toilets in the Buipe bridge area are still in water.
Due to the absence of a functioning toilet, some of the residents have resorted to the use of polythene bags, which are disposed improperly.
Children can also be seen squatting along pathways in between houses easing themselves, usually into containers or polythene bags.
“For us, we go far away into the bush to defecate,” Mma Ayisha, a resident of the area told this paper.
She lamented the poor state of sanitation in the area, saying “Sometimes you’ll be walking along a pathway and you’ll find faeces everywhere.”
Mma Ayisha entreated the district assembly to try and rehabilitate the toilet in order to remedy the situation.
The DCE told the Daily Graphic that the assembly in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), had acquired 15 emergency mobile toilets.
“We would be placing them at vantage points in the district to ease the sanitation problem in the district,” he stated.
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