The Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako-Atta, has hinted at redesigning roads in the Tamale Township after assessing damage caused by recent heavy downpours, to road networks there.

This comes after days of heavy downpours in the Tamale township.

The rains resulted in floods that did not only displace families, but also destroyed several major roads in the Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu Municipality, endangering the lives of commuters who ply these roads, especially at night.

The rains also affected some major storm drains, including the Gumani-Fuo and the Gumbihini-Nyanshegu storm drains.

He said there is the need for the redirection of the drains, construct more and redesign the internal roads to control the floods.

“We have a big problem. I think we have to look at the design of internal roads of Tamale differently, I have realised that we have to take a proper look at the two storm drains running through the town, redesign the internal roads, redirect the channel, build more drains to control the rainwater,” Mr Amoako-Atta said.

The Minister, who described the city as being in a mess, said if the city roads are not redesigned, the floods could continue to cause more havoc each time it rains.

Mr Amoako-Atta, who also inspected the Savelugu Nanton road said, some of the roads were either cut off or in terrible shape.

”Discussions with my engineers suggest that there is the need to redesign this particular stretch, build one big boss culvert to be able to carry all these volumes of water,” Mr Amoako-Atta said.

“The road is cut off and impassable, this is unacceptable,” he added

Mr Amoako-Atta further disclosed that he has directed that the road should be fixed and upgraded to save it from further damage.

“There are many roads like that and the region is still suffering under the rainfall that was experienced recently,” he said.

Also, he said there are some areas that cannot be assessed, therefore, they will be relying on the Air Force to have a proper assessment of those areas.

”Thanks to the Air Force. Tomorrow, they are assisting us with a helicopter for us to have an aerial view of all the disaster areas. Perhaps, I will be able to give a fair comment tomorrow before we move to Upper East. As we did in the Upper West, where the situation is under control, same is going to be done for here and Upper East,” the Road Minister said.

Mr. Amoako-Atta described the works done on the Kalariga drain as substandard.

“From what we saw, you don’t need engineering mind to say the work done was substandard and there was no proper coordination, you saw that even the storm drain constructed had fallen, In there, was a lot of cracks,” he said