When floodwaters recede in Accra, they often leave behind more than damaged homes, stranded vehicles and disrupted businesses. They also leave behind familiar questions about accountability. This year has been no different. As residents continue to recover from recent flooding in parts of the capital, another video circulating on social media has shifted attention from the disaster itself to one of its underlying causes.
The video captures a coconut seller emptying coconut husks into an eroded section of land. According to the seller, the shells were intended to fill the washed-out area. Moments later, a concerned passerby confronts him, accusing him of worsening an already dangerous sanitation problem by dumping material that could eventually end up in nearby drains. The passerby reminds him that only days earlier, floodwaters had entered homes in the community, destroying belongings and disrupting livelihoods. He also questions why those living in the area are watching the dumping without intervening, prompting a woman in the video to respond that people who speak up are often branded as troublemakers.
The exchange has sparked renewed public debate about indiscriminate dumping, personal responsibility and weak enforcement. Yet beyond the emotional confrontation lies a more important economic question. Could Ghana turn the growing number of citizens documenting environmental offences into an organised reporting system that helps reduce flooding, strengthens law enforcement and rewards civic responsibility?
Across Ghana, mobile phones have become powerful accountability tools. Residents routinely record illegal dumping, open burning, the disposal of refuse into drains, and other sanitation offences, then upload the videos to social media. Most of these recordings generate public outrage for a few days before disappearing from the national conversation. Very few become evidence that leads to prosecution.
That represents a missed opportunity.
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly has consistently maintained that dumping refuse into drains violates its sanitation bylaws and contributes directly to flooding. In 2019, after a viral video showed a woman disposing of refuse into a drain during heavy rainfall, the Assembly described the act as unacceptable and appealed to the public to volunteer information that could lead to the arrest of offenders. The Assembly stressed that such behaviour undermines efforts to reduce perennial flooding and confirmed that hundreds of offenders had already been prosecuted under existing sanitation regulations.
The call for public cooperation has remained consistent over the years.
In March 2024, then Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive Elizabeth Sackey warned residents to stop littering and dumping refuse into drains, announcing that the Assembly’s Sanitation Court would prosecute offenders found violating sanitation laws. She urged residents to take responsibility for waste disposal and avoid polluting drains, particularly as authorities intensified desilting exercises ahead of the rainy season.
Enforcement has not been absent. Between January and March 2022 alone, the Assembly prosecuted 115 sanitation offenders for offences ranging from dumping refuse into drains to maintaining insanitary premises. The prosecutions formed part of efforts to enforce the Assembly’s 2017 sanitation bylaws, which make it an offence to dump solid waste into drains and public spaces.
Yet despite these actions, illegal dumping continues across many communities.
Part of the challenge is practical. Environmental health officers cannot be present on every street, every drainage channel or every neighbourhood at all times. Meanwhile, millions of Ghanaians carry smartphones capable of recording evidence in real time.
That raises an important policy discussion. Instead of allowing viral videos to remain social media content, should the government establish an official digital reporting platform where verified evidence submitted by citizens leads to investigation, prosecution and financial rewards for successful reports?
Such systems already exist in different forms around the world. Several countries operate whistleblower reward schemes in areas including tax evasion, environmental violations and corruption. The underlying principle is straightforward. Citizens become partners in enforcement rather than passive observers.
Applied to sanitation, the concept could create both environmental and economic benefits.
Flooding carries enormous financial consequences. Businesses lose trading days. Informal traders watch their inventory being destroyed by water. Commercial transport slows. Insurance claims increase. Public funds are repeatedly diverted to emergency relief, dredging and infrastructure repairs instead of long-term development.
Illegal dumping also increases operational costs for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. Choked drains require expensive desilting exercises, while blocked waterways accelerate road deterioration and increase maintenance costs for public infrastructure.
If even a fraction of these offences could be prevented through stronger community reporting backed by swift enforcement, the potential savings could be significant.
Environmental advocates have repeatedly argued that keeping drains free from waste is one of the simplest ways to reduce urban flooding. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency this year, environmental advocate Nana Dwomoh Sarpong warned that indiscriminate dumping into drains and water channels continues to obstruct water flow, contributing to recurring floods, destruction of property and economic losses. He called for stricter enforcement of sanitation bylaws and stronger public education.
A citizen reporting programme would not eliminate the need for education or infrastructure investment. Neither would it replace regular waste collection services or proper drainage planning. Instead, it could strengthen existing systems by increasing the likelihood that offenders are identified before their actions contribute to larger environmental damage.
Such a programme would require careful safeguards. Reports would need independent verification before penalties are imposed. False or malicious accusations should attract sanctions. Personal privacy must be protected, and evidence collection should follow clear legal standards. Most importantly, rewards should only be issued after successful prosecution or confirmation of an offence under existing laws.
For Ghana, the discussion is ultimately about changing incentives.
Today, many citizens watch environmental offences happen without taking action. Others record them simply to post online. But if verified reporting became part of a transparent enforcement framework, public participation could evolve from social media outrage into measurable environmental governance.
The confrontation between a coconut seller and a frustrated passerby therefore represents something much larger than a neighbourhood disagreement. It reflects a country searching for more effective ways to enforce laws that already exist.
As another rainy season reminds Ghanaians of the economic cost of poor sanitation, perhaps the next innovation will not come from another excavator clearing drains after floods. It may come from the smartphone already in the hands of millions of citizens, transforming ordinary residents from witnesses into active partners in protecting communities, preserving public infrastructure and reducing the growing financial burden of urban flooding.
