Asafo Market Traders and Drivers Urge KMA to End Recurring Flooding Crisis
Traders and commercial drivers at the Asafo Market in Kumasi have made an urgent appeal to the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly to desilt choked drains and implement lasting drainage solutions, following yet another round of flooding that brought business to a standstill.
The latest incident occurred after Tuesday evening’s rains, which, though moderate, were sufficient to inundate the frontage of one of Kumasi’s busiest commercial hubs. Vehicular movement ground to a halt as floodwaters surged across the Asafo Four Junction stretch, disrupting trading activities and stranding commuters.
The flooding at Asafo is not a new phenomenon, but residents say the problem has grown worse with each passing rainy season. Even a light downpour, they say, is now enough to paralyse the area — a situation they attribute to years of neglected drainage infrastructure and unchecked encroachment on waterways.
“The problem we are facing is that when it rains, even though it didn’t rain heavily, water floods from the top down at the overhead. Water enters the cars. When it rains continuously for about ten hours, nobody can pass here,” one trader said, describing a scene that has become all too familiar in the neighbourhood.
The traders and drivers point to choked gutters as the primary culprit. Years of accumulated refuse and silt have narrowed drainage channels, reducing their capacity to carry stormwater away from the market and surrounding roads. Several residents noted that previous desilting exercises by the authorities yielded only temporary relief before the problem returned.
A driver operating along the Asafo stretch offered a further diagnosis, blaming poor road design and illegal construction for compounding the crisis. “The road they built has made the gutters smaller, and the ones they left for water to flow through have been built on. Now we can’t even find the gutters again,” he said. “When it rains, the water rises and brings pressure. No car can go or come.”
Asafo is a major transport and commercial node in Kumasi, serving as a key transit point for intra-city and intercity commuters. The economic cost of repeated flooding in such a strategic location is significant, with traders losing perishable goods, drivers losing hours of productive work, and the broader supply chain experiencing disruptions.
The traders acknowledged that authorities had undertaken some drainage work in the area last year but said the efforts fell far short of what was needed. “Last year I saw the authorities doing some work on the gutters, but still the problem persists. They have to help. Even if it is a bridge we need, we will take it,” one trader said.
The call from Asafo comes amid growing national concern over urban flooding, which has claimed lives and destroyed property across several Ghanaian cities in recent weeks. Two people were feared swept away after the River Agyei overflowed onto the Kasoa–Domeabra road, underscoring the deadly consequences of poor drainage infrastructure nationwide.
In Kumasi specifically, the issue of market infrastructure has been a persistent sore point. Traders at the Kumasi Central Market earlier appealed to Contracta Construction Company not to close its office amid delays in the Kejetia Market Phase II project, highlighting the precarious state of commercial infrastructure in the Ashanti Regional capital.
The traders and drivers at Asafo are now urging the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly to treat the drainage crisis as a matter of urgency, calling for comprehensive desilting, improved drainage design, and stricter enforcement against encroachment on waterways. Whether the assembly will respond with the speed and scale the situation demands remains to be seen, but for the traders who depend on the market for their livelihoods, every rainy season that passes without action deepens their frustration and their losses.
Image Source: MYJOYONLINE
