Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah has said that by 2030 an over 400,000 additional people in Ghana will live below the poverty line because of climate change and climate-related issues.

She further said a significant number of houses along the coast have been washed away, and the trend would continue in selected areas if drastic action is not taken to address the twin challenge of Poor Waste Management and Flooding.

The Sanitation Minister said this in a keynote address read on her behalf by Mr Joseph Obeng-Poku, a Director at the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources at the Bi-Annual Week Celebration of the Ghana Consulting Engineers on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, at the Engineers Centre, Roman Ridge, Accra.

“The Environmental sanitation challenges facing Ghana are fast becoming endemic and there is the urgent need to decisively deal with them since they have socio-economic and public health implications on the good people of Ghana”, Mr Obeng-Poku added.

The Deputy Minister for Works and Housing, Eugene Boakye Antwi, MP for Subin, who deputized for the sector Minister, Samuel Atta Akyea, also added that his ministry is convinced that we are at the stage in the life of the nation where there is the need to take a critical look at how we design and construct our drainage systems. He called for training enough drainage engineers to design, supervise and build quality drainage interconnecting systems for the country.

Eugene Antwi said his Ministry is advocating for the consideration of a subterranean drainage system to replace the existing open drainage systems currently in existence. He added that it is the role of Ghana Consulting Engineers to assess its workability and try to incorporate this technology into designs moving forward. He admonished the Consulting Engineers that they should refuse projects that inhibit wetlands and block waterways.

Cross session of GCEA members of the ceremony

In his welcome address, the President of Ghana Consulting Engineers Association (GCEA), Ing. Isaac Addai said, for their week celebration, they have chosen the topic: “Tackling the Recurrence of Flooding and Management of Solid Waste in Ghana, The Role of Consulting Engineers and Stakeholders”, because the challenge of managing flooding and solid waste has become critical and a headache to the managers of major cities of Ghana.

“We believe as an association that we have a role to play in addressing these challenges, hence,  our decision to have this topic for our week-celebration. We have assembled a team of very experienced and knowledgeable Engineering Experts to present technical papers on how best we can solve or mitigate the impact of these challenges”, Ing. Isaac Addai added.

The Ghana Institution of Engineering (GhIE) gave their fraternal message to the Consulting Engineers through their Immediate Past President (IPP), Ing. Steve Amoaning-Yankson.

Also present at the ceremony were the Executive Director of GhIE, Ing. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, IPP of GCEA, Ing. Albert Ogyiri, GCEA Council members, Past Presidents of GCEA, high profile Speakers and the GCEA member firms.