ACCRA, June 12 (JoyNews Analysis) – When heavy rains submerged swathes of Ghana’s capital this month, paralyzing transport and destroying properties and companies, considered one of President John Dramani Mahama’s marketing campaign guarantees to finish Accra’s years of flooding was additionally washed away.
Mr Mahama, who returned to workplace in January 2025, has made flooding a centerpiece of his 2024 election marketing campaign, promising “engineered options” to issues which have plagued the low-lying coastal metropolis for many years. Seventeen months later, components of Accra are underneath water once more, and the hole between that promise and the floods has come underneath repeated assault.
Mr Mahama stated in a Fb submit on Could 27, 2024 that if re-elected, his authorities would discover engineering options to the persevering with flooding, particularly in Accra. He stated the plan consists of investing in sustainable drainage methods, eradicating buildings from waterways, correct waste administration and proactive measures to cut back the affect of heavy rains.
“We can not proceed to place the lives and livelihoods of our folks in danger. It’s time for actual change and actual options,” he wrote on the time.
predecessor’s duty
The pledge was tied to criticism of his predecessor, Nana Akufo-Addo. Mr Mahama claimed that the earlier authorities had spent $200 million on the World Financial institution-supported Better Accra Resilient and Built-in Improvement Program (GARID), however stated the affect was but to be felt.
“Whereas the affect of that massive quantity and its intervention is but to be felt, Congress was lately recalled to authorize one other $150 million for a similar GARID” in 2024, he stated, including that the administration has failed to guard lives and property.
His Nationwide Democratic Congress claimed that the earlier authorities’s failure to desilt the Odo River, Coal Lagoon and different drainage channels had worsened the flooding.
job power and helicopters
In March 2025, two months into his time period, Mr. Mahama established a seven-member flood management job power chaired by Deputy Chief of Employees Stanislav Dogbe. Its first exercise was an aerial survey of flood-prone areas comparable to Weija, Sakumo Ramsar wetlands and Tema fishing port.
“The president, involved in regards to the persevering with flooding not solely in Accra however all through the nation, has arrange a particular unit to handle the problem and decrease, if not fully stop, flooding,” Dogbe informed reporters, including that the navy would help in eradicating sediment from main drainage channels.
In April 2025, Mr Mahama inspected areas vulnerable to flooding and was clearly angered by buildings being constructed on wetlands, ordering the demolition of buildings blocking waterways.
“These wetlands have been nature’s technique of safety for us. Now, as a result of greed and negligence, individuals are constructing over waterways, and when it rains harmless lives are misplaced and houses are destroyed. This has to cease,” he stated, including that the time for warning is over.
Insurance coverage as a second line of protection
Alongside the engineering commitments, the federal government additionally appeared to monetary safety. In Finances 2026, the administration promised a parametric flood insurance coverage scheme for the capital. “In 2026, Ghana will even introduce a parametric flood insurance coverage scheme within the Accra metropolitan space to guard 1.2 million weak residents from flood-related disasters,” the funds assertion states.
The plan is predicated on a venture launched in 2022 underneath a public-private partnership. The initiative, led by the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance, the United Nations Improvement Programme’s Insurance coverage and Threat Finance Facility, and the Insurance coverage Improvement Discussion board, with assist from the German authorities, delivered two parametric insurance coverage merchandise to the Accra metropolitan space: extra rainfall cowl and a flood footprint product. In contrast to conventional insurance coverage, the place funds are made based mostly on harm evaluation, parametric merchandise set off sooner payouts based mostly on predefined parameters comparable to rainfall ranges and flood severity, concentrating on weak households on low incomes and residing in casual settlements.
Nonetheless, progress was gradual. One evaluation identified that the procurement course of didn’t start till September 2025 after receiving approval from the Ministry of Finance, and that the presidential change in January 2025 considerably delayed the method for flood merchandise. Specialists additionally warning that insurance coverage is a complement, not a treatment. Whereas infrastructure tasks take years to finish, floods can happen inside hours, and even with improved drainage, the danger of flooding will stay as local weather change intensifies excessive rainfall.
the return of the flood
It began raining anyway. After a number of days of heavy rain in early June 2026, the highway from Kaneshie and Odauna to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle space become a river inside hours, trapping commuters and flooding markets.
Mahama, who returned from a go to to Belarus on June 9, stated that this 12 months’s rains have been heavier than normal and ordered the catastrophe administration company NADMO and others to arrange a complete report on the flooding.
However his analysis had modified. Addressing the diaspora in London on Could 31, the president, who had referred to as for technical fixes, stated the other.
“The flooding in Accra shouldn’t be a technical drawback. It is only a drawback of indiscipline,” he stated, citing the development of waterways and plastic waste dumped in drains.
The reversal mirrors claims made by Akufo-Addo himself in 2022, prompting criticism that Mr Mahama, who had accused his predecessor, would now face the identical expenses.
