We don’t need sympathy, fix the flood issue – Nduom to Mahama

Founder of the Progressive People’s party (PPP), Papa Kwesi Nduom has rubbished President Mahama’s attempts to sympathise with victims of Wednesday’s deadly floods and chastised him and his government for failing to fix Accra’s perennial floods once and for all.

According to him, the president had failed to implement promises he made in previous years to permanently solve the problems.

Nduom’s claims follows the death of about a hundred people at a GOIL fuel station in Accra after the station caught fire during a heavy downpour.

The rain which lasted for more than six hours submerged several businesses and destroyed properties worth millions of Ghana cedis.

President Mahama who visited the filling station to sympathize with the victims said, government will adopt drastic measures to stop such incidence from re-occurring.

“We have to take some measures to avoid this in the future. Often when these measures are drastic, you have a lot of sympathy and pressure not to take these measures. But I think the time has come for us to move houses out of the waterways. The public should understand that it is necessary to take such measures to save everybody else,” he added.

But Papa Kwesi Nduom who did not take lightly to the president’s message took to his Facebook page to pour his frustration.

“I agree. The fact that we have not been able to take ‘measures that are drastic’ points to weak-kneed leadership. Good leaders solve problems, fix what is broken. And sympathy? What is sympathy when you are dead or your business is destroyed?”

He however assured of his preparedness to support any course in finding solutions to the perennial flooding menace saying “I am ready to support concrete, specific, needed action to solve the problem. All I ask is for the President to lead from the front.”

Papa Kwesi Nduom also narrated how his business at Avenor was submerged by the flood.

“Following floods in Accra last year, some of my businesses lost valuable, expensive equipment and stock meant for sale. We built new drainage systems, built new walls, fortified our warehouse, etc.

Once again, due to the recent rains, all our individual investment have gone to waste because the water way near us at Avenor burst its banks. If government does not fix the public water way, what we do as private people and businesses will not work.”

“I will not close any business down or lay off the workers. We will be back working. I just want President Mahama to fix this problem. He is the President of the Republic of Ghana.”

Source: Citifmonline.com

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey

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