The story on our back page yesterday is small, but it reveals a big national failure.
At East Legon, near the ARST Roundabout, a car dealership, Savil Tinamou Motors, a Chinese-Ghanaian joint venture in Greater Accra Region, has extended its wall by more than five metres onto the public pavement, covered part of the gutter, and mounted a metal mesh fence close to a give-way sign to display vehicles for sale.
Pedestrians, including the elderly and persons with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, are forced off the pavement onto the busy American House–Ogbomosho Boundary Road.
When contacted by the Daily Graphic, the company claimed it had paid GH¢2,500 and secured a permit from the La Nkwantanang Madina Municipal Assembly (LaNMMA) to demolish its wall and use the pavement to park and display vehicles.
LaNMMA says that is false. An official of the Assembly, who asked for clearance from the MCE before speaking on record, confirmed the encroachment was illegal.
The permit issued was a temporary permit for a tent, canopy or temporary shed, not to sell cars on a pavement.
The Assembly has given the company a two-week ultimatum to remove the wall or face sanctions by the first week of September.
The case of Sanli Tianyou Motors is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a nationwide abdication of duty by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tamale, Koforidua, Cape Coast, Ho, Sunyani and every major town.
Our pavements have been privatised. Our walkways have been colonised.
Our footbridges have become markets.
Under Section 21 of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936) and the bye-laws of every Assembly, it is an offence to trade, hawk, display goods, build or park on pavements, walkways and footbridges.
Pavements are public infrastructure built with taxpayers’ money to ensure safe pedestrian movement.
Yet, drive through Accra today and see what we have allowed: At Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Lapaz, Madina Zongo Junction, Kaneshie, Kasoa Old Barrier, Kejetia in Kumasi, Market Circle in Takoradi, traders have taken over every inch of pavement.
Mechanics have turned pavements into workshops. Churches have mounted loudspeakers on them. Car dealers, like Sanli, use them as showrooms. Container shops are built on them overnight. And what do the Assemblies do?
They collect tolls from the very encroachers they are supposed to evict.
They issue so-called temporary permits for tents and canopies that become permanent structures.
They look the other way until the media shouts.
In the East Legon case, how did LaNMMA issue a business operating permit to a car dealership without checking its physical planning compliance?
How did the company demolish a wall and erect a fence on a public pavement, close to a road sign, without any Assembly taskforce seeing it for four months?
The company itself says it parked cars on the pavement for four months before breaking the wall.
Where were the Assembly’s development control officers?
The claim that the two-storey building is rented and the wall will be restored when the tenant vacates is even more insulting.
So a tenant can destroy public infrastructure and promise to restore it later?
That is impunity.
The cost is paid by the vulnerable.
The Daily Graphic’s interest was triggered by residents concerned about vulnerable members — the elderly, persons with physical disabilities, the visually impaired.
This is the crux.
When businesses take over pavements, the rich simply drive.
It is the poor, the schoolchild walking to school, the woman carrying a baby, the blind person with a white cane, who is forced onto the carriageway to compete with speeding vehicles.
Many pedestrian knockdowns in Accra and Kumasi happen because there is no pavement to walk on.
We build roads for cars and give the pavements to traders.
Then we wonder why road traffic deaths remain high.
It is also an issue of law and order and revenue.
Pavements covered with gutters blocked with concrete, as observed at East Legon, impede drainage and cause flooding.
Structures on pavements obscure road signs, as the give-way sign at ARS shows.
They create visual clutter and make our capitals look like slums.
No business has the right to privatise a public pavement for private profit.
We call on all MMDAs, especially in national and regional capitals and major towns, to act decisively.
There is no provision in any bye-law to permit permanent display of vehicles on a pavement.
Temporary permits for tents and canopies must not be used as a backdoor to encroach.
LaNMMA has given Sanli Tianyou Motors one week.
Ghanaians are watching.
If the wall is not removed, we will know that permits and money are more powerful than bye-laws.
