In an effort to check flooding and minimise its damaging effects on lives and property, the government is reviewing the 1992 Accra Strategic Drainage Plan to modernise the drainage system in the national capital. The plan, which was initiated in 1988 and completed in 1992, was prepared by the Town and Country Planning Department, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAlD). The Director of the Town and Country Planning Department, Mr Kwadwo Baafour Asare, who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic, said the drainage system in the capital could no longer sustain the growing population in the city and therefore, needed to be modernised. The government, he said was poised to avoid any serious havoc to lives and property during the next rainy season. "The government is seriously concerned about the poor drainage system in the capital and is prepared to do everything to ensure that we have a very good plan to mitigate flooding," he said, noting that works to be identified would be completed by the end of this year to prevent a recurrence of the recent disasters. Mr Asare suggested that the assemblies could attract developers to other areas of the capital by providing basic essential amenities in those areas. He said the department, which is part of the Inter-Ministerial Task Force charged to demolish houses on watercourses, was poorly resourced and understaffed. He attributed the understaffing situation to the existing policy on manpower which prevented the department from engaging personnel for certain key planning activities. Mr Asare said the department would take advantage of the only option provided under the policy to replace personnel with approval from the Ministry of Finance. Currently, he said, the department had enough policy or resource planners but lacked settlement planners skilled in planning urban development to prepare layouts and planning schemes. According to him, the assemblies needed to work jointly with settlement planners to plan good roads and layouts devoid of encroachment to make communities seIf-sustaining. Source: Edward Turkson (Daily Graphic)