The Rainy Season Is Here Again.

Ghana experiences the harmattan and the rainy seasons and these two weather patterns have an impact on all aspects of the life of the people living in the country. The rainy season in particular sometimes delay and our meteorologists sometimes attribute these changes in the weather pattern to the climate change phenomenon. They often give weather predictions and people are made aware of the changing weather pattern so that they schedule their daily activities so as prepare very well for an impending storm or heavy downpour. But the question i have here is that, are we prepared for the rainy season? Reports of floods in some of the major cities are very rife on the airwaves and in the newspapers, what are we doing as good citizens to make sure the perennial flooding in some of our major towns and cities is reduced to the barest minimum. Accra and Kumasi are no exceptions to flooding in Ghana. When this occurs, lives are lost and properties worth millions of Ghana Cedis are destroyed by the raging floods. The government is then called in to come to the aid of the affected citizens, but they only provide relief items and usually do not tackle the root causes of the problem. The government lacks the political will to pull down or demolish structures built on water ways, prosecute people who divert the courses of rivers and streams, and put in place measures to prevent or deter people from dumping refuse into the drains and unauthorized places. As a result of all these negative practices which the government is unable to curtail, most of the drains and gutters in some of the major cities are choked with refuse and liquid waste, and the impending rains are bound to cause more havoc. So as an individual and a Ghanaian living in our dear country, how prepared are you in your own small way to make sure that you do not fall victim to this perennial flooding in the towns and cities? The most amazing and surprising thing is that, when the floods happen and lives and properties are lost, that's when the solutions are prescribed by both the government and the people. Are you prepared to pull down your house which you have built on the waterway through the connivance of some corrupt Town and Country Planning official, who took some bribe from you and gave you the green light to put up your structure? Are we also willing to help desilt the gutters in our communities before the onset of the rains? It seems the sense of communal labour that used to exist in our communities some time back is no more as most people are just sitting there waiting for the government to come and desilt their drains or gutters for them? I believe and think that we are simply not prepared fro the oncoming rains. We are behaving like the vulture who has no proper place of abode but tells itself when it starts raining, that tomorrow it will build its nest, but just as the rain stops, it goes back to perch on the tree and forgets that it rained. God bless Ghana, amen.