Reports reaching us indicate that some scrap dealers have occupied waterlog areas in Ketu South, mounting fences in these areas and making it difficult for the water to flow through the drains in Ketu South.
This has created serious flooding problems for some residents whose front views have been occupied by these scrap dealers at the blind side of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Municipal Assembly.
Recently, the Ketu South District was devastated by floods, especially in Zorokporme Viepe.
These communities have been battling the floods and the activities of these scrap dealers is making matters worse for them as their walls are now falling due to the flooding and water accumulating under their walls due to the sheds erected by these scrap dealers blocking the flow of water.
This paper has established that reports have been made to EPA in Ho on 28/9/23.
It was also established that most of these scrap dealers are foreigners who travelled from Niger, Togo to the community to violate the law with the help of some regulatory agency officials whose mandate is to see to it and ensure that our community is safe to live in.
This paper can say on authority that, an officer at EPA-Ho, Lawrence Evans Logosu who received the complaint from a resident whose building is in danger of collapse, directed his colleagues to the scenes for inspection.
A week later, they came to inspect the place and went back.
According to the resident, “I never heard from them again. I made a follow-up by phone call informing him about the situation here that things are bad and that if the scrap dealers were still at post doing their job my house would completely submerge. He told me I should contact NADMO, Works and Housing, and Environmental Sanitation to deal with the situation either than that, I have to contact the President of the Republic to help me out.”
The resident could not understand why he had to contact the president of the Republic of Ghana for this to be addressed.
He said, “We are now facing unprecedented change which presents huge challenges to public security and safety. Human behaviour is unpredictable due to their deep-seated and value system. EPA refused to honour its obligations since they, themselves have issued permits for these foreigners to operate on our water-log areas.”
He also accused EPA of being complaisant of their operations which is forcing the workforce to face ethical dilemmas.
“If you violate the law then you cannot escape the wrath of its punishment. What’s happening to this agency? The truth is that these occurrences have become far too frequent in our community or society,” he averred.
According to him, he again reported to NADMO works and housing and Environmental sanitation workers and was surprised to hear that, a letter was officially addressed to them for a meeting to address this flooding issue and they refused to appear for the meeting.”
“Failure by these agencies to take action and get these scrap dealers from the water-log areas have denied proper remedy potentially encouraging these scrap dealers who occupied water-log areas to violate our laws. If we allowed public sector workers to do what please them this is the results.”
The EPA however is dedicated to continuously improving and conserving the country’s environment in which all sections of the community value the environment, and strive to attain sustainable development effective and efficient resource management based on good environmental governance taking into account social land equity issues.
But, people wonder if EPA living up to this vision statement.