Do we solve or create problems in Ghana?

I have often asked myself whether or not we solve or create problems in this country anytime there is an issue.  Some of our attempts to tackle key problems often end up becoming problems in themselves. Since my few days in Accra, I have particularly been worried about productivity and wondered how workers and employers manage to keep their staff productive in the midst of the heavy traffic.

I spend five hours daily going to and from work. That translates into 25 hours per week, 100 hours per month and 1,200 hours per year.

Should you get a job at 28 years in Accra, for 32 years of your working life, you will spend 38,400 hours, which when converted to days, comes to 1,600 days. This simply is a little over four years (four years, four months) of one’s life. So if I live in Kasoa and work in Accra for 32 years, I spend over four years of my life in traffic. Four years of productive life lost. Given that more government institutions are in Accra, with workers staying at the outskirts of the city, it stands to reason that there are more years of productive life lost to the government.

Elsewhere in Tamale, you could spend eight minutes going to work (four minutes in, four minutes out). That means I could utilise four hours, 52 minutes productively each day. If I work all my working life in Tamale or elsewhere, I am many years more productive than if I lived in Accra.
These statistics are not the point I want to make with this piece. The many years lost to productivity in Accra and Kumasi is a human factor and they could be dealt with. Here, I worry about a myriad of problems we handle. Solving some of these problems all contribute to creating several others that lead to loss of productive years.

Tollbooths

The government needs taxes and revenue to meet its obligations, including paying workers’ salaries. While addressing this problem, there have been so many tollbooths at Kasoa and several other places on Kumasi and other routes.

These tollbooths have traditionally created heavy vehicular traffic. Sometimes, one can spend about an hour just waiting to pay toll. This leads to hours of productive life lost if you put the many people that spend that amount of time daily at the tollbooth.

Workers who spend more time at the tollbooths consume more fuel and, thus, become impoverished because they have to spend significant amounts of their salaries buying fuel due to the traffic. The other problem tollbooths create is that the nation enriches individuals who sit at the booths. Sometimes if you drive an SUV and pay GH¢1,  you are given a GH¢0.50 ticket. Where does the other GH¢ 0.50 go? Who checks on these toll collectors?

We can solve these multiple embedded problems if we mechanise payment at tollbooths like we have it elsewhere in Europe and America.

We could sell electronic tickets at fuel stations and since every driver buys fuel, access to the proposed electronic toll cards will be easier. It will ensure that 99 per cent of revenue generated goes to the government or would be accounted for. Electronic ticketing will also ease the flow of vehicular traffic since there will be minimal human intervention.

Police barriers

We agree that police barriers are mounted to check crime and theft. Since the introduction of the police visibility programme, we have seen more police barriers. While I do agree that they scare off armed robbers and arguably reduce highway crime, they have been a source of vehicular traffic. This weekend, I was amazed when coming from Nsawam to Amasaman there was no traffic.

I had expected one and factored it into my time. Why was there no traffic? The police were not there. So while we solve the problem of crime, we create traffic and sometimes I say to the policemen at the barrier, “there is huge traffic behind.” What is worse is when you meet police officers checking for licences early in the morning while going to work. I usually say to myself, “don’t you know we are in a hurry to work and you are creating all these traffic”?

Road construction

A country’s development partly depends on accessible roads that open up towns and markets. While we have seen the expansion of Ghana’s road network in recent times, some of these newly constructed roads are creating problems. A typical example is the Accra-Aburi road.

Following its construction, movement on that stretch has become a little easier for all. Not long ago, the two lanes were converted to one because while constructing the road, the contractor did not think about the fact that the rocks will fall. An opening cut through the rocks should have alerted him that with the passage of time, the rocks will fall and cause havoc. I hope it was not a deliberate ploy to collect additional money to solve that problem.

Siting of traffic lights

There are many traffic lights mounted to regulate human and vehicular traffic in Accra. I must say that while some are good, some have by themselves caused a lot of vehicular traffic. I cannot fathom why the second Weija Solar traffic light was positioned where it is presently. A footbridge could have been constructed. Each morning you see thousands of cars trailing each other, sometimes all the way to West Hills Mall, all because of that pilot solar traffic light.

Revenue collection at hospitals and public places

We give people jobs when we hire them to collect revenue in public places. In recent times, we see and hear these revenue collectors pilfering money meant for the very system that recruited them. Why can’t the banks collect revenues for us in public places or why can we not go electronic?

I am told that at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, where the banks were made to collect revenue, collection has improved by some hundred percentage points.

While I lament all these solution-problem systems and our approach to issues that ultimately lead to loss of productivity, let me mention that there have been solutions that have worked very well. The conversion of some roads into “one-way” lanes from Korle-Bu to Accra and some areas on the High Street and the Controller and Accountant General’s electronic pay slip system etc. are some of them.

I hope, and I can only hope, that the new government will ensure that while we solve one problem, we do not create several other ones that will affect our productivity.

The writer is the Deputy Executive Director of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), Labone,
Email: jamesduak@yahoo.com
skype: jamesduah99