We have failed: The floods are not just a government problem. They are a mirror and we may not like what we see

By Georgette QUARMYNE

Every rainy season, the same tragedy plays out across our beloved Ghana. Communities submerge. Roads become rivers. Families lose property, livelihoods and sometimes their lives. And without fail, before the waters have even receded, the blame follows a well-worn path: straight to the government. Blocked drainages. Poor urban planning. Corruption. Neglect. The accusations pour as freely as the floodwaters themselves. And yes, many of them are valid. But I want us to pause, take a long, uncomfortable look in the mirror, and ask ourselves a question we have been avoiding for far too long: what is our own role in this disaster?

Because here is the truth that nobody wants to say out loud. The drainages are blocked because we blocked them. With our sachet water bags, our food wrappers, our discarded household waste casually tossed into gutters because a bin was not close enough, or simply because nobody was watching. The government did not put those items there. We did.

“The drainages are blocked because we blocked them, with our own hands, one wrapper at a time.”

But littering is not the only way we have contributed to this crisis. Informal housing development has compounded the damage significantly. Across Greater Accra and beyond, structures have been built on wetlands, waterways, and natural floodplains, areas that exist precisely to absorb and channel excess water.

When those areas are built over, the water has nowhere to go. It overwhelms streets, homes, and livelihoods with a force that no drainage infrastructure could fully contain. Building permits are supposed to be issued by municipalities before any construction begins. So we must ask honestly: are the municipalities failing to do their jobs, or are builders simply flouting the rules?

Has the Accra Metropolitan Authority reneged on its duties when it comes to the enforcement of physical planning regulations, given that so many structures stand illegally on natural wetlands, waterways, and floodplains, blocking natural drainage paths and putting lives directly at risk? These are not bureaucratic questions. They are moral ones. When regulatory frameworks exist but are not enforced, and when citizens build where they know they should not, the consequences fall on the most vulnerable, on families in low-lying communities who had no say in where those walls were built.

I belong to a generation that had no excuse. We, the millennials, grew up watching Captain Planet thunder across our television screens in the 1990s, a blue-skinned superhero who taught us, episode after episode, that the power to protect the earth was literally in our hands. We sang along. We cheered when the Planeteers combined their rings. We understood the assignment, or so we thought. And yet here we are, decades later, throwing garbage out of moving cars and disposing of refuse in ways that turn our city streets into landfills every time the rain comes.

Captain Planet’s lesson: “The power is yours.” We heard it every week as children. The question is whether we ever truly believed it.

What makes this particularly painful, and I say this as someone who shares this faith, is that Ghana is a deeply religious nation. Walk through any neighbourhood and you will find a church or a mosque. We are, by our own proud declaration, a people who worship the Most High God. Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists alike profess reverence for a Creator whose very first act was to make this earth and declare it good. And yet we have chosen, systematically, to destroy the same environment that this Creator entrusted to us. We mine illegally and turn our rivers into rivers of rust. We raze vegetation that took centuries to grow. We poison the water bodies our grandparents once drank from freely. If the earth belongs to God, what exactly are we telling God by the way we treat it?

We cannot call ourselves God’s children as a people and continue to destroy God’s earth. We have become unworthy stewards, not because we lack the knowledge, but because we lack the will.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness, until the service ends and the compound fills with rubbish.”

Nothing illustrates this contradiction quite like our religious gatherings. We organise crusades, prayer conferences, festivals, and thanksgiving events that draw thousands. The worship is fervent. The declarations are bold. The name of God fills the air. And then the event ends, and you would not believe that the grounds had just been occupied by people who frequently quote the saying that cleanliness is next to godliness. Bottled water crushed underfoot. Flyers and food packaging scattered as far as the eye can see. Religious adults who had just spent hours in spiritual devotion, leaving behind a site that looks like a dump. We need to do better. We can do better. When it comes to our environment, we have failed Mother Ghana.

So what should happen to us for destroying Mother Earth? I attended Ridge Church School from Grade 1 to Grade 12, and one rule was absolute: litter the compound and face the consequences. No warnings. No second chances. If a teacher or prefect caught you dropping so much as a sweet wrapper on the ground, you were punished on the spot. And it worked. Our compound was immaculate because everyone knew the standard and the cost of falling short of it. If a tenant wilfully destroys a landlord’s property, there are legal consequences. If we, as tenants on this earth, continue to destroy what has been given to us, should there not be consequences equally serious?

We pay taxes. In theory, those taxes fund municipalities to maintain clean, functional public spaces. But perhaps it is time to revive something older and more direct: the era of town councils that held individuals and businesses personally accountable for the condition of their immediate surroundings. Could it be that simple? That each of us takes ownership of the space around us, our street, our gutter, our compound, and that those found in violation face not just a slap on the wrist, but meaningful consequences: strict spot fines, or even short custodial sentences for repeat offenders? It sounds radical, until you realise that several cities around the world maintain their cleanliness precisely because such standards are enforced and taken seriously.

This is not about punishing people who lack access to proper waste infrastructure. Those are real challenges that government must answer for. This is about confronting the middle-class professional who throws a takeaway bag from a car window. The market trader who sweeps her stall’s refuse into the open drain. The attendees of an event that leave a field looking like a refuse dump. People who know better and choose otherwise.

A call to action: Clean the space around you today. Report illegal dumping. Hold your neighbour accountable, kindly but firmly. Demand that your local assembly enforce waste management laws. And when you are at your next gathering, carry your rubbish out with you.

World Environment Day, marked every fifth of June, is not merely a date on a calendar. It is a reminder and a reckoning. Ghana is a beautiful country. Her coastline, her forests, her rivers, her red earth. She deserves better than what we have given her. Our children deserve to inherit something other than flooded streets and poisoned water. And if we truly believe in the God we so loudly proclaim, then perhaps the most honest act of worship we can offer right now is to pick up the rubbish at our feet.

We can still turn this around. But only if we are honest enough to accept that the problem begins with us and that the solution does too.

>>>the writer is a strategic marketing and communications professional with more than a decade of experience across energy, financial services, hospitality, media and philanthropy. She specialises in brand reputation, stakeholder engagement, executive communications and crisis strategy, with a solid record of building integrated communication frameworks before pressure arrives. Georgette holds a Master of Arts in Communications and Technology and is an Accredited Public Relations Professional (APR) and Professional Member of the International Association of Business Communicators. She writes on environment, civic accountability and public affairs.

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