The Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has defended the flood management record of the former Akufo-Addo administration, insisting that the government pursued a comprehensive, long-term strategy to address Accra's perennial flooding rather than relying on short-term emergency interventions.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, June 30, Mr Ahiagbah argued that the flooding challenge predates successive governments and requires sustained engineering and infrastructure investments.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo–Bawumia administration recognised flooding as a structural development challenge and took deliberate steps to address it through coordinated planning.

He said that in 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo established a Cabinet Sub-Committee with a dedicated mandate to develop a comprehensive national flood management strategy, particularly for Accra.

"Flooding in Accra is not new. It has challenged governments for decades, and no serious administration can pretend such a deep problem can be solved with seasonal sympathy or reactive press tours after the rains," he stated.

Mr Ahiagbah further indicated that the government backed its strategy with substantial financial commitments, allocating more than GH¢550 million over eight years towards emergency flood relief, drainage rehabilitation and routine desilting of waterways.

He maintained that flood prevention required continuous maintenance rather than occasional interventions after heavy rains. "The Akufo-Addo–Bawumia government chose the latter," he said, referring to what he described as a structured and sustained approach to flood control.

He also highlighted the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project (GARID), a US$200 million initiative supported by the World Bank, as the centrepiece of the former administration's flood mitigation programme.

According to him, the project combined climate-resilient drainage infrastructure, solid waste management, community upgrading and disaster preparedness under a single integrated framework.

He disclosed that about US$92 million was allocated to drainage infrastructure, US$42.2 million to waste management systems and US$58.8 million to upgrading vulnerable communities.

Mr Ahiagbah maintained that several major flood-control projects were already underway before the NPP left office in January 2025, including dredging works on the Odaw River, drainage construction at Achimota-Abofu and South Kaneshie, the Busia Highway drainage project, protection works at Atomic East and the deployment of a Flood Early Warning System.

He further noted that the proposed Atomic East and Atomic West Detention Ponds had reached the procurement stage and described the initiative as potentially the country's most significant flood-control intervention.

"The evidence speaks for itself. The Akufo-Addo–Bawumia government did not ignore Accra's flooding crisis. It approached it with planning, engineering, international collaboration, sustained financing, and tangible infrastructure development," he wrote.