This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) has been marked at Ho with a clarion call on property developers to adhere strictly to building regulations.

The event held recently was under the theme: Good Disaster Risk Governance.

The Volta Regional Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Divine Bosson expressed concern over the continuous building of structures in waterways and unapproved locations with impunity by developers, saying that the trend was definitely a recipe for disaster.

He, therefore, called on the District Assemblies to take a firm and an uncompromising stance to reverse the trend before it resulted in a wide scale catastrophe.

Mr Bosson touched on the environment and said that there was still the need to plant more trees in the various communities to serve as windbreaks and also to check erosion in times of severe weather conditions.

The Regional director highlighted the need for a DRR policy to be incorporated into an act of parliament to ensure an appropriate funding for that purpose.

He said that inadequate funding and the lack of modern equipment to support disaster risks management operations were posing serious challenges to NADMO.

Shedding light on the achievements of the organisation in recent times, Mr Bosson said that NADMO had planted more than a 1,000 trees at various locations in the region this year, adding that climate change adaptation and its related issues were key on NADMO’s agenda.

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa who graced the occasion also called on the citizenry to demonstrate their sense of nationalism and readily help to prevent disasters.

“For instance, we can grow grass on our lawns and plant trees in the surroundings to check erosion,” he said.