The Ashanti Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), Kwabena Nsenkyire, has urged Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to stop residents from building on waterways.
He also urged the MMDAs and the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to ensure that existing structures are brought up to code.
His comments come after three persons were hospitalised on Wednesday at Atasemanso in the Kumasi metropolis after the wall of a building collapsed following a downpour.
The three have subsequently been treated and discharged. One person, a toddler, is also reported to have died after he was carried away during the rain.
In an interview with Kwabena Nsenkyire said MMDCEs must enforce the laws to avert disasters during the rainy season.
He thus called on the Ashanti Regional Minister to check the activities of the MMDCEs to ensure that they do the right thing.
“It is the assemblies that have the authority. Whenever NADMO goes in there, we give them notice and, at the end of the day, we have to send the notice back to the assembly building inspectors,” he said.
“So I think the Regional Coordinating Council and REGSEC have to monitor the various assemblies very well in terms of putting up structures and also in terms of obtaining building permits.”
