Wa, Sept.26, GNA - Five persons were reported dead when their buildings collapsed following torrential rains that hit the Upper West Region between the months of July and September this year. The dead included three children and two male adults. Four other persons sustained serious injuries in the incident.

Alhaji Seidu Bawa, Upper West Regional Director of National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), made this known when he briefed the Parliamentary Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises and the Regional Minister, Alhaji Issahaque Salia on the disaster situation in the region on Saturday. He said during the period, all the nine districts in the region experienced the collapse of residential structures, totalling about 5,638 with 13,741 persons displaced.

An estimated total cost of damage stood at 1,386,042.00 Ghana cedis.

Alhaji Bawa said 10,777 persons suffered from the rains in the months of August and September with a total of 4,989 acres of cultivated farms being submerged. The Lawra and Sissala West Districts had been identified as the hardest hit with each having more than 1,000 acres of farmland submerging.

On washed-off roads and bridges, Alhaji Bawa said a total of 196 kilometre of road had been severely affected in five districts with the Sissala East District alone recording 73.5 kilometres stretch of road having been washed off.

Eight bridges have also been washed off and these damages had been estimated at 3,077,104.79 Ghana cedis. Alhaji Bawa mentioned the 75-80 kilometre Bulenga-Yala Road, Yala-Kundungu-Sombisi Road, Wahabu-Funsi Road and Han-Tumu Road as some of the Highway roads that had been damaged and needed urgent repairs to facilitate the movement of goods and people.

He suggested the involvement of local people in developing the drawings for the construction of roads and bridges to avoid shoddy work and other malpractices in job delivery. Alhaji Bawa recommended technical assistance in the building of houses in rural communities to avoid regular collapse of houses during rainy seasons.

He gave the assurance that NADMO would continue to play its advocacy role and also intensify its education on good farming and sound environmental practices to help prevent food insecurity and other disasters.

Mr Paul Okoh, Deputy Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises, said the tour of some disaster affected communities and the roads would give members a good assessment of the flood situation and its impact on the people. It would also enable the members to share ideas on how to develop a long-term solution for the perennial floods as well as examine ways of involving Parliament in the ongoing monitoring of progress made by the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).

Alhaji Salia urged members of the Committee to give a wider look at the (SADA) programmes so that development issues such as disasters were integrated into the core businesses of SADA. He appealed to members of the Committee to make recommendations to government, especially on the poor nature of roods in the region for urgent attention.

Alhaji Salia said some communities were cut off and some farmers could not harvest their crops because of the floods. Members of the Committee toured Funsi where a newly constructed bridge which was handed over about six months ago was washed off. They described constructional work on the bridge as shoddy and called on the authorities to deal with the contractor to deter others from the practice.

The tour took them to Bugubelle where they inspected a bridge that had been washed away and continued to Tumu to see the Sissala East District Assembly Block which had been ripped off by a rainstorm. From Tumu, the parliamentarians took a risk by touring the Jeffisi-Han portion of the Tumu-Wa Highway that had been closed down to mammy trucks following the total failure of the top slabs of two bridges during the floods. Dr Charles Jabuni of SADA, heads of the Ghana Highway Authority and Feeder Roads and the District Chief Executive of Wa East, Mr Aminu Salifu, accompanied the members on the tour.