Registrar of the Engineering Council of Ghana and Head of the Hydrological Services Department, Wise Ametepe, says it will take over 24 months to completely dredge the Korle Lagoon and the Odaw River.
He added that the volume of material in the Odaw channel is making it “very difficult” for engineers to dredge the river.
The Odaw River perennially floods and spills over during raining season.
Dredge Masters Limited has been engaged in desilting and dredging the Odaw channel since February, 2019.
On Tuesday, May 22, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo visited the sites to inspect the progress of work.
Mr. Ametepe in an interview on 3FM Sunrise morning show noted that the materials dredged from the Odaw contained car parts, batteries, tires, broken home furniture and home plastics.
“To have the Odaw completely dredged, that will take as much as over 2 years. There are so many materials in the Korle lagoon; over 1 million cubic meters of material in Korle Lagoon for instance, which has to be dredged. And that can take a long period,” he explained.
Mr. Ametepe said the Odaw channel had a bad slope hence when the flood water gets to that zone, it deposits its material including silt, and this causes clogging in the channel.
Speaking to the measure that has been adopted to halt the annual flooding of the Odaw, the Hydrologist said the first step was to dredge the lagoon to the design level.
He added that sand traps, detention ponds upstream to hold some water, expansion of the channel and installation of early warning flood systems are some of the other infrastructure to complement the efforts to halt flooding in Accra.
By Paul Selorm Agbo| 3news.com| Ghana