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Recent rainstorms in the Accra metropolis and surrounding areas have brought to light the dangers some of the huge billboards in the city pose to pedestrians as well as motorists. |
For instance, yesterday dawn rainstorm and the earlier one last Thursday, brought a number of billboards tumbling down, blocking roads and pedestrian walkways.
Some of the affected billboards are that of the IGIT on the Tetteh Quarshie-37 Road opposite Opeibea House, Ghana Standard Board’s by the Angolan Embassy and a Teacher Mackerel’s opposite the Tesano Police Station.
Others include the Sprite billboard at the Freedom and Justice Park at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle which was quickly dismantled by workers of the advertising company and an ‘1-Burst Africa’ billboard at Adjiriganno, East Legon.
Most of these billboards are said to have been sited contrary to the Local Government (Accra Metroplitan Assembly) establishment instrument clause 36, under the Second Schedule 1995 Legislative Instrument 1615 which stipulates that advertisers, companies, organisations and individuals who mount billboards must first seek the approval of the AMA.
Speaking to the Times yesterday, Nuumo Blafo III, Public Relations Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), said the indiscriminate siting of billboards in the city has become a major source of worry to the assembly.
He explained that seeking the clearance with the Development and Planning Department of the AMA before siting a billboard is to ensure that its location does not affect any service lines such as water and electricity.
"Sometimes, we go to the site to ensure that the billboard will not obstruct others and also that nearby buildings do not suffer ventilation blockade from the billboards," he said.
The assembly, he said, also goes to the extent of determining the size and type of materials to be used in constructing the billboards in order to minimise any mishap if they should fall.
"But we have realised that some advertisers are bent on using inferior products to construct their billboards, thus, the problem we face today," he said.
Nuumo Blafo said that AMA will soon embark on a search and destroy exercise in the city to rid the metropolis of such unauthorised billboards.
Meanwhile, some parts of Accra, especially the Kwame Nkrumah and Obetsebi-Lamptey Circles, Anyaa and Odorkor were flooded as a result of the storm.
For instance, at the Ring Road West offices of the State Insurance Company, near the Obetsebi Lamptey Circle, the staff were forced to park their cars along the road to be conveyed to the offices in vehicles with higher clearance.
At Anyaa, near the Christian Valley School Junction, some houses were submerged while some schoolchildren and others waded dangerously through the flood to safer grounds.
Most commercial vehicles plying Anyaa refused to drive through the flood to pick passengers at the station thus forcing commuters to struggle through the floods to other stations to board vehicles to their respective destinations.
Some BECE candidates were also trapped by the floods and made it to their respective examination centres only with the help of some motorists who gave them lift in the back of their pick-up vehicles.
The floods also resulted in heavy traffic, notably on the Awoshie-Odorkor road. |
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