The Floods In Accra: A Symptom Of An Entrenched Developmental Crisis

The flooding of parts of Accra has been a devasting feature in raining seasons. However, the almost total inundation of the national capital by two days of rain fall beginning on the Sunday 29^th of June 2026 is an outrage of which poor urban planning and the failure of waste management programmes are only inevitable consequences. It reflects a graver reality of the situation of this country and priorities of political leadership.

The situation has gained national and international attention. The coach of the national team expressed his sympathy for the losses across the Atlantic where Ghana is struggling with world cup ambitions.

Locally, the charismatic President John Mahama has to spend office hours in a helicopter inspection of the capital. Earlier, a high-level working committee on the flood menace chaired by Deputy Chief of Staff, Stan Dogbey had been announced.

To catch up with the momentum, opposition leader Dr. Mammoud Bawumia has to take a walk in the muddy streets of Accra as a show of concern. Beyond this --business-as-usual gesture, the opposition has not been in a position to offer critical leadership in the situation.

There have also been hundreds of commentaries on the situation which have evaded the understanding of the root of the whole crisis. The discussions have centered on poor urban planning and the disposal of solid waste into drains.

Accra is a contradiction of super luxurious estates in the mist of repugnant urban squalor, a clear reflection of the widening social and economic inequalities over the past four decades.

Just at the precincts of Kempinski lies the hellish slum of Tudu. Basic services in Accra, a home to nearly a third of Ghana’s urban population have collapsed at the same time that multimillion dollar investments in real estates are sprouting in the heart of the capital every hour.

Governments in the past few decades have not only abandoned access to housing as human right but also as a social policy. Private property development based on market driven demand and incentives are prioritized over regulated public housing policy needed to address the needs a growing youthful and productive population. Thus, there is the absence of social planning, resulting in chaotic scramble and haphazard development of lands in Accra.

The consequence is an unrestrained open-ended chaotic expansion through the development of private single housing units, that have failed to address real housing needs and placed a strain on critical public services and infrastructure. Regular access to pipe borne water has become a worsening challenge not to talk of human waste disposal and the menace of open defecation.

Despite Accra’s expansion and a booming construction industry, the majority of the residents are faced with housing challenges and exorbitant rent charges in poorly constructed communities.

Within this scramble, public officials have become the agency for acquiring prime areas in the capital which are allocated for high rise estates, insulated from the prevalent crises of the ever-growing neglected urban slum dwellings in the central business districts.

It is reported that the flood has claimed thirty-seven lives and displaced over eighty-nine thousand people. These are highly underreported figures, and are all people leaving in poor dwellings in deprived communities.

It is not also very clear what in particular the GHC 350 million being given to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) is meant to address. This is an organization that has a record of mismanagement of public resources and has betrayed a lack of global standard in institutional capacity for disaster management, particularly within the past decade.

In 2019 the NPP government adopted a cosmetic approach. A Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GRAD) Project funded by the World Bank focused mainly on the dredging of the Odaw river and management of solid waste through infrastructure and community sensitization. There has been an inexplicable delay in the construction of an underground drainage system which only got public attention just after the floods begun.

This measures just as all World Bank projects will not serve much purpose and will only increase the national debt burden as it is only meant to address exclusive admirative areas in Accra. Worse of all it does not even address the perennial flooding as a national emergency.

What is even worrying is that media practitioners and civil society have not been able to interrogate the activities of GARID since its founding by the previous government.

Thus, it should not be expected that a deeper and broader understanding of the developmental crisis in Accra will be examined.

Government effort has not gone beyond some unimpressive so-called affordable housing schemes which is out of the reach of ordinary people.

Private investment in the housing sector only serves the needs and taste of the upper middle class, it has not got the scale and capacity to address the housing needs of a growing economy.

The Tema Development Corporation is now TDC Company Ltd and has abandoned its established social mandate for providing long-term housing security, control costs for low-income households, and address socio-economic vulnerabilities through heavily regulated, sub-market rental rates.

In understanding urban planning as an integrated human centered development approach in eradicating poverty and creating meaningful livelihoods will mean going beyond the World Bank piecemeal approaches. The GARID Project betrays poverty of political leadership.

Public gestures of concern should come with insights on alternatives to development. The Accra flood crises must inform discussions on a wider problem of widespread poverty, squalor, deprivation and elitist exclusionism. This means the reassessment of the entire developmental paradigm of the country.

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