The Chairman of the Municipal Security Coun­cil (MUSEC) of the La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assem­bly, Alfredos Nii Anyetei, says the assembly is putting in measures to halt the rapid encroachment on the Kpeshie Lagoon.

Furthermore he said steps would be taken to halt Laboma beach resort from developing per­manent structures along the banks of the lagoon to curb flooding in Tse-Addo and its immediate environs.

Addressing members of MUSEC at an emergency meeting on Tuesday, Mr Anyentei stressed on the need to secure the remain­ing portions of the two sites and potentially reclaim enough space to enable heavy upstream water to settle.

“This meeting is meant for us as MUSEC to draw and implement immediate to long term measures on the encroachment menace at the Lagoon and at the Laboma sites to prevent future flooding when it rains heavily” he said.

The meeting was attended by se­curity agencies, National Disaster Management Organisation (NAD­MO), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), LaDMA officers and other members of MUSEC members.

The Chairman who is also the Municipal Chief Executive of the assembly said there have been previous community engagements and reports on the issue but sadly the actions taken was not enough to halt the encroachments at the sites.

According to him, currently, the lagoon is silted very much with wastes and other forms of mate­rials and whenever there is high tide from the sea, there will not be anywhere in the area to soak the excess water.

“When it rains heavily or when there is high tide from the sea, the water will find its natural course because there is no where for it to go, and this can flood the whole of Tse-addo and some surround­ing areas in La” he said.

The Chief Executive said devel­opments at Laboma is very alarm­ing and if not checked could bring severe challenges to the assembly.

Mr Anyetei said that MUSEC and the assembly will come under severe criticism in-case the area experience flooding due to the indiscriminate encroachment at the Kpeshie Lagoon and Laboma Beach Resort areas.

The Municipal Head of Works, LaDMA, Maxwell Edu Boateng, indicated that the Lagoon original size was 118,78 hectors but due to the rapid illegal encroachment on the by developers at the area over time it has reduced to 56.91 hectors due to breached of the assembly’s propose local building plan

“Developers started breaching the locally proposed building plan of the municipality from 2013 till date when they crossed into the buffers and mangrove of the Lag­on” Mr Boateng indicated.

He hinted that if care is not taken the assembly might experi­ence devastating flooding in the future due to developments at both places.

“This kind of activity being un­dertaken by the developers is very worrying and we anticipate that for some years or months to come, the assembly is bound to experi­ence some form of calamity as has been seen in other areas where the floods occur” the Head stressed.

According to the Special Planner at LaDMA, Kwabena Anim, the situation at Laboma Beach is very alarming due to the permanent structures developers had con­structed along the beach instead of temporary ones which could be removed easily.

Mr Anim cautioned that engi­neers at the assembly had not cer­tified the structural integrity of all buildings at Laboma and therefore cannot assured of the safety of the structures at the place.

‘’It was our prayer that we do not record any kind of building disaster along the beach because it is going to cause a big blow for the assembly because our building instructors had not gone there to see it’’ he noted.