Another rainy season, another round of heart-wrenching images: submerged cars, frightened families perched on rooftops, and muddy water lapping at the doors of schools and hospitals. This year, Accra and other parts of Ghana have witnessed some of the most serious flooding in recent memory. Residential areas that were once dry havens have become disaster zones. And while climate change and poor drainage layouts are often blamed, I believe the real culprit is far more immediate-and far more avoidable.

The truth is, this year’s persistent floods are largely due to one “man-made” problem: choked gutters.

Walk through any major suburb in Accra after a slight downpour, and you’ll see the evidence with your own eyes. Water that should flow freely toward the sea instead creeps slowly, pooling around market stalls, creeping into living rooms, and turning highways into rivers. Why? Because our drains are clogged with plastic waste, silt, and solid refuse that hasn’t been cleared in months. During even a slightly heavy downpour, the runoff has nowhere to go. The result is instant inundation.

But this wasn’t always the case. For years, the government of Ghana, through the various district and municipal assemblies, maintained a working contract with ZOOMLION Ghana Limited, the company that managed the nation’s sanitation. Love them or question them, one thing was undeniable: the drains were being cleared. Regularly. Efficiently. ZOOMLION’s teams were visible; desilting gutters, collecting waste, and ensuring that when the rains came, the water had a path to escape.

Then, unfortunately, that contract was abrogated across the country. The decision to end that partnership has left a vacuum no one has adequately filled. Urban areas, once kept manageable, are now engulfed in filth. Overflowing skip bins, choked culverts, and abandoned drainage channels have become the new normal. And the floods? They are the loud, destructive consequence of that silence.

The havoc these floods are causing is no longer a distant news headline. It is a daily catastrophe. Families have lost their homes. Business owners have watched years of investment wash away. Children have drowned. Diseases like cholera and malaria are likely to spike in the aftermath of stagnant, contaminated floodwaters. The economic toll alone runs into millions of cedis; money that could have been spent on development, not disaster recovery.

What is most frustrating is that this is not a mystery. We know what works. We had a system that, while imperfect, at least kept the water moving. The abrogation of the Zoomlion contract did not magically create a better alternative. It created a sanitation desert. And now, every rainfall, no matter how minor, exposes how vulnerable we have made ourselves.

So let me be blunt: If pragmatic steps are not taken to re-engage ZOOMLION Ghana, the worst is yet to come.

I am not saying ZOOMLION is a perfect solution. But perfection cannot be the enemy of survival. Right now, Accra and other flood-prone cities need immediate, large-scale desilting and waste management. They need a partner with the machinery, manpower, and on-ground experience to clear the filth before the next heavy downpour. That partner, ready and tested, is ZOOMLION.

We cannot keep waiting for a “better arrangement” to materialize while our people drown and their property is destroyed. The districts and municipal assemblies must act now. 

Because the rain does not wait for policy debates. It comes. And if our gutters remain choked, the next flood will not just submerge our streets, it will swallow our future.

Ghana, we are literally drowning in our own waste. It’s time to clear the gutters, and the political inertia before the waters rise again.