Exposed wires turn pedestrian walkways into death traps

Ten months after schools were shut down in March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19,  two sisters — Benita and Benedicta — have missed school; but they are at home and do not have to face the daily risks in the streets.

The six-year-old twins no longer have to walk close to one-kilometre from home to school and back  daily using pedestrian walkways that have dangerous streets lights.

These class one pupils of the Rev. Lartey Adotey Memorial School at Adabraka, Accra, have to be guided by their mother or a guardian to walk safely past several galvanised street light poles with sellotaped or naked cables within arms length of the little girls as they walk, a situation that is deeply worrying to their mother.

“I feel very bad about these street lights because they pose risks to my kids, who like many other children, are ignorant of the danger in their path to school,” Mrs Fausty Adjei, the mother of the children told the Daily Graphic.

“I always have to stop them from touching objects when they are walking to school but I am afraid when another person is taking them to school; they may not be able to give them the protection I give. I sometimes feel it is safe for them to be home studying than out in the streets,” the businesswoman said.

Risks

Like Benita and Benedicta, hundreds of other schoolchildren from the Adabraka clusters of schools also have to manoeuvre their way past street lights that have exposed wires hanging out of concret poles.

The schools include Liberty Avenue "2" JHS, Liberty "1&4" Primary School, Mantse Tackie “1” Primary, Mantse Tackie “3” Primary School, Liberty Avenue “3” Primary School, St Joseph RC School, Presbyterian Basic School, Additrom Preparatory School, Virgo Preparatory School and Adabraka Official Town Presbyterian Preparatory School, among others

Many of these vulnerable children from these schools are often unaware of the risk of receiving electric shocks, if any part of their body touches the naked cables.

“People, including children, have the right to life and these street lights, which are meant to be helpful and provide us some safety on the streets at the night, are now risks,” said Rev. Andrews Nortey, the immediate past Adabraka District Head Pastor of the Apostolic Church, which supervises Rev. Lartey Adotey Memorial School, said.

“We do not have to wait for a calamity to happen before we take steps to solve the problem. I hope that the city authorities will be proactive by ensuring that children are not exposed to these dangers,” he added.

• Two pupils from the Addditrom Preparatory School being guided to walk past a street light pole with cables outside 

Persistent risk

The situation has been the same for a while even though the Daily Graphic, for a year now, has been throwing the searchlight on the dangers pedestrians in Accra face using walkways.

And for more than one-and-a-half years, the risks have not been addressed and school children continue to face the imminent risk of electrocution.

Today, there are still over 13,000 out of the 40, 0000 street light poles in Accra that have their joint wires that connect power from the underground mains to the poles dangling outside concrete frames.

According to an assistant engineer in charge of Work Schedules of the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA), Mr Eric Afful Baiden, the problem has persisted since 2017.

“Our inability as an assembly to repair these dangerous street lights is largely due to lack of funds,” he said.

Areas where these dangerous street poles are a common sight include the Central Business District (CBD), Kaneshie, the Graphic Road, the Barnes Road that stretches from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to the Holy Spirit Cathedral, Achimota, the High Street, the Korle-Bu road and the Liberation Road, have quite a sizeable number of the street pole with wires covered with Sellotape.

In some cases, the sellotape used to insulate the wires have been removed, exposing the live wires.

• Benita and her sister being walked by a guardian, closed to expose electrical wire. Pictures: Nana Konadu Agyeman

Great danger

Although the wires had been sellotaped, experts said they still posed a great danger to pedestrians.

“Besides, since most parts of Accra are flood-prone, when it rains and the floods get to the level of an exposed wire, anybody who dares step in water near the poles is likely to be electrocuted, since water is a good conductor of electricity,” an engineer with Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) sub-station at Adabraka who asked not to be named said.

“The cables inside the galvanised poles may be exposed and can touch the metal poles. So, if anybody touches the poles, especially in this rainy season, the person can be electrocuted and the problem must be given the urgent attention it needs,” he added.

• A parent taking her daughter to school

Assembly

In June 2019, the Daily Graphic contacted the Korle Klottey Municipal Assembly which manages street lights in Adabraka and its environs, and the Chief Executive for the assembly, Mr Samuel Nii Adjei Tawiah, blamed the situation on some contractors who worked on street lights but failed to replace the metal covering and vandalism by scarp dealers who expose such coverings to steal  the cables.

“It is good the Daily Graphic has brought this danger to our notice and we will work on replacing and repairing street lights,” he assured.

After the assembly had failed to resolve the challenge, the Daily Graphic contacted the assembly in November 2019 and the Chief Executive once again said: “we are committed to resolve the danger.”

Sadly, 12 months after the second assurance, the street lights in the pathways continue to pose danger to pedestrians, a fear headteachers of some of the schools in Adabraka and parents, expressed.

“Schools are reopening in January next year and my plea to the government is to make sure that the streets are safe before children start school,” a former headteacher of Adabraka Presbyterian School,” Mr Daniel Botweh, pleaded.

What are street levies used for?

To seek answer as to what street levies the public paid were used for, given that most damaged street lights had been unattended to since 2017, the Daily Graphic contacted the ECG.

The Public Relations Manager of the company, Mr William Boateng, said the entity only collected the three per cent street light levy and paid it into a government escrow account managed by the Ministry of Energy (MoE).

“There is no law that requires the ECG to release funds to any assembly for maintenance and we do not have the authority to do so.

“It is the Ministry of Energy which decides how the money should be distributed to take care of whatever the funds are to be used for,” he said.

Answerable, MoE

The Head of Public Relations of the MoE, Nana Damoah, acknowledged that all the principal streets were being managed by the MoE,.

He added that under the current system, expenditure involving internally-generated funds, including street light levy, had to be taken to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for approval.

“Even though the street light levy is held by the MoE, we cannot touch it, unless we have sought approval from the MoF in conformity with the current finance procedure in the country,” he said.

However, the Head of Regulations, Inspection and Compliance of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Mr Kwame Kodua Atuahene, said it was the responsibility of the MoE to ensure that there was safety on streets, particularly for children.

“This is because they manage the street levy Ghanaians pay and we must demand questions of them: how they use these street lights, so that they do not take Ghanaians for granted,” he said.

• A JHS student from the Rev. Lartey Adotey Memorial School lead two young sibling to avoid one of the dangerous street light in a walkway behind the school