Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

An environmental economist has said that any effort at curtailing the perennial flooding in Accra will yield very little result if the deficiency in the construction of the Odaw drains is left unresolved. Mr Kofi Owusu Bempah observed that Accra’s flood-prone areas were located within the catchment of two streams that emptied into the Odaw River from Caprice. According to him, the drains constructed to contain the water from the two streams were the same size as the Odaw drain, adding that “any time it rains heavily upstream and the two streams get flooded and empty into the Odaw River at Caprice, the Odaw overflows its banks, causing serious havoc to lives and property”. “If the volume and the force of the water are twice as much but the gutter size is not twice as much, at a certain level this will cause a spill. That is what we are experiencing now,” he said Expanding the Odaw drain In an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra last Monday, Mr Bemp

  The case involving the interdicted NSS officials took a dramatic turn last Friday when 25 out of the 35 accused persons pleaded with the court to allow them to refund their alleged misappropriated money. The move started with Mr Egbert Fabille Jnr who told the court that his clients—Ali Ahmd Awumbilla, Ebenezer Edzi and Seth Q. Quartey—were willing to refund the money. That opened the floodgate when the presiding judge, Mrs Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsah, approved the move, saying: “For those in position to pay, the door is open now. We won’t come back to this when we have crossed the bridge.” The new twist means the state could recover close to GHc27 million out of the GHc107 million the accused persons were alleged to have stolen or misappropriated. What Section 35 of Courts Act says As if on cue, counsel   for the 22 other accused persons got on their feet to make similar pleas for restitution in compliance with Section 35 of the Courts Act 1993 (Act 459).

Last Wednesday’s flood that swept through Accra and other parts of the country has reduced many beaches, especially those in the capital, to dumpsites. Among the debris that has taken over the beaches are plastic waste, polythene bags, broken bottles, rotten food and carcasses. Every space along the coastal stretch at Korle Gonno, Nungua, Sakumono and the Accra Arts Centre is littered. The only exception in the midst of the chaos at the beaches is the La Pleasure Beach, which was very clean and had a number of tourists enjoying the serenity of the coast. Although the National Sanitation Day came off last Friday, the beaches in Accra were forgotten, a situation which says a lot about the country’s effort to make tourism the number one contributor to its gross domestic product (GDP). Korle Gonno beach The Korle Gonno beach in Accra, is not new to filth. It is notorious for two things-- as the receptacle for rubbish that flows through the Korle Lag