Accra Mayor, Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije should be fired - AFAG

In June 2014 President John Mahama promised; "..... I have directed the Finance Minister to release funds immediately for construction of storm drains in Accra. There will be no flooding in Accra again."

A year on, the rains are in and once again, Accra is flooded. Clearly, there is no doubt that Ghana, our beloved nation, is led by leaders who care more about their names in the newspapers, Billboards and faces on TVs than solving pressing issues facing us. We are led by a government, which lacks vision, is docile and have not kept faith with solving the many issues confronting the ordinary Ghanaian.

The reported death of nearly one hundred of our fellow citizens from a predictable event like flooding in our capital goes to prove our point that, the government slept at the wheel. This is unacceptable and Ghanaians must ask why the Mayor of Accra and the President allowed this solvable and preventable calamity to claim precious lives.

It is time for concrete actions to be taken.

AFAG would want to congratulate the Military, Police and other services agencies for the role they played yesterday. We hope the Police, Prison Services and other volunteers would all join hands in helping our brothers and sisters in need. RESOLUTIONS

1. The Mayor our Accra Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije should be fired. As Mayor, with all the powers of his office, it was his duty to clean up the city and to have taking necessary actions to have avoided this disaster. He woefully failed in his duties.

2. President Mahama has failed in his duty to protect Ghanaian lives for lack of or the failure of implementing a comprehensive drainage plan for the capital. AFAG challenges the President to present to the nation a drainage plan in the next three months. We also call on him to personally take a direct leadership role in addressing this problem.

3. As a people we cannot escape part of the blame. We have turned drains into refuse damps and toilets. This has led to choking of drains thereby worsening the situation. We must change our third-world attitude. It is reprehensible.

4. As a matter of urgency, the Mahama-Arthur Amissah government should implement, without delay, a de-silting exercise as a first step towards solving the drainage challenge. 4

CONCLUSION AFAG believes that, if President Mahama gets serious, and with our help, we could implement a drainage plan and take the necessary actions to solve his situation.

There should be an attitudinal change on our part as a nation. Failure, we could continue to witness this sad “reality-movie” year after year, as it has been for the last seven years.

Let this sad moment energize us to bite the bullet and fix this problem.

SIGNED AFAG Leadership