A Climate and Sustainability lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Kwadwo Owusu, has warned of a growing and largely unregulated wave of construction along the mountainous stretch between Ayi Mensah and Aburi.
According to Professor Owusu, the current pace and scale of development on the slopes pose serious environmental and safety risks—not only to residents in the area but also to parts of the Greater Accra Region that could be affected by potential disasters.
Speaking in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, April 8, the academic raised concerns about the lack of comprehensive scientific assessments to determine the carrying capacity of the slopes before construction projects are approved and executed.
He stressed that without proper geotechnical studies, developers may unknowingly be placing enormous pressure on fragile terrain.
“The issue there [Ayi Mensah and Aburi] is putting a wait on slopes and nobody has done analysis in Ghana to know what weight that slope can take and if you look at the buildings there, they are the biggest so what you are going to do is destabilise the slope and with years of saturation of the soil through heavy rainfall, the slope will become unstable and the buildings will begin to collapse and that is what we call landslides, mudslides.
“Getting a slope to collapse is through the angle and the load on the slope and so that is a ticking timebomb if we continue doing what we are doing. The sad part is that somebody is building up and somebody is also cutting the down. We are setting ourselves up for a serious problem.”
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