The perennial flooding of large sections of the Governor’s Office car park, Calabar, and the adjoining Cross River State Ministry of Finance, returned this Friday morning as rain has fallen without ceasing, barring staff of the Ministry of Finance, Calabar from going to work.
The rain which started in the wee hours of this morning, is responsible for flood water that has seemingly taken over the entire ground floor of the Ministry of Finance building, making it almost impossible for staff with offices on the floor to access their offices.
One staff spoken to this morning told calitown.com that, “this problem has defied solutions and it does not look like anybody is interested in ameliorating our plight. You can see for yourself that I am knee deep in water, attempting to get into my office and get a few things out so that the flood water does not damage them”. Visible too is the inability of the Ministry of Finance staff to use the Ministry’s car park, resorting to the use instead, of that of the adjoining CRS Council of Chiefs secretariat car park.
At the Governor’s Office car park, a few abandoned government vehicles are window-deep in water, just like the flood is threatening the power house at the mouth of the car park.
Calitown.com investigations have revealed that the incessant flooding of these places is not unconnected with the blocked drainage, running between the Ministry of Social Welfare and that of Finance and exiting in Big Qua. Additionally calitown.com also discovered that the high volume of water coming from the U. J. Esuene stadium axis of Calabar and that also draining in from the Police Headquarters on Diamond Hill, have both proven too massive for the drainage, constructed long before the area became built up. To tackle this problem, one source suggests “the widening of the drainage at the Big Qua axis and the clearing too of the drainage’s path by all those who constitute obstacles to the smooth discharge of water passing through the drainage”. Officials of the state Ministry of Works were unavailable at press time to give calitown.com an evaluation of the situation.
