Kofi Akordor: Desperation out of frustration
I cannot tell when exactly and how it started. I am talking about the growing phenomenon of street hawking which is a clear pile- up of years of bad leadership which has damaged a once vibrant and thriving economy.
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Many Ghanaians today, especially those below 40 years, may be surprised to hear that this country had four vehicle assembly plants in Tema, Accra and Kumasi. Two plants in Accra (Achimota to be precise) and Kumasi were assembling Neoplan buses, while the Tema plant was assembling Bedford vehicles. The VAM23 brand of the Bedford was a long bus, while the Motorway was a smaller version. A fourth plant at Dzorwulu was assembling Willowbrook buses, which is a Leyland brand.
Apart from the assembly plants, there were other local companies dealing in vehicles which all offered jobs to hundreds if not thousands of Ghanaians. They included, Japan Motors, Auto Parts, Kowus Motors, Mechanical Lloyd, PHC Motors and RT Briscoe, which became Sabat Motors.
Tema was really an industrial hub and one could readily recall Tema Food Complex Corporation (TFCC), Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC), which was competing with the Ghana Textile Printing (GTP), manufacturers of the famous ‘Dumas’ textile prints, Akasanoma Electronics and Sanyo.
Others include the Tema Shipyard and Drydock, Tema Steel Works, the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), formerly called GHAIP, and the biggest of all, the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO). All these companies and many others have seen their glorious days but are now either dead, crawling or cannibalised.
Accra, the national capital, Kumasi and other towns had their fair share of industrial establishments which cushioned the youth against unemployment. Today, many could not believe that we were manufacturing tyres, machetes, garments, safety matches and many other products in Ghana.
The collapse of the industries changed the economy from a productive to a consumer one and with that, street hawking became a gainful way of making money, and the youth who should be in the factories or industrial plants have found their way onto the streets.
Things have changed drastically and every consumer item we set eyes on is either from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, India or Korea. The decay started many years ago but took a nosedive during the period of a so-called revolution which was to usher us into a better era.
In the beginning, hawking was centred around market areas and a few rest stops on the highways. Today, wherever there is a traffic jam becomes a thriving market for trading. The desperation of the traders is quite obvious and their activities have become more or less a harassment of motorists.
These days, if you are not careful and you leave your vehicle windows down, you are likely to have something shoved into your face. It is no longer a matter of choice but an obligation to buy and as soon as your vehicle comes to a halt, there is a mad rush from these hawkers.
Thanks to dumsor, which is now a standard word in our dictionary, Chinese-made lamps of all descriptions dominate the wares being sold by the street vendors. Other items include food, electronics, garments, accoutrements such as knives and catapults; shoes, wrist watches and wall clocks.
You may call it mobile shops or markets and you will not be wrong because the traders drift with the traffic, the heavier the traffic, the higher the concentration of the traders.
There is nothing wrong trying to make money through legitimate means. But what is happening on the streets is an embarrassment to us as a nation. Most of the people selling dog chains and Chinese toys should not ideally be there, some are school-going children, some are pregnant girls (I mean girls and not women) and others are strong, well-built young men whose services to the nation could be elsewhere.
Apart from the danger to themselves, because occasionally they get knocked down by vehicles, these hawkers are a danger to motorists who drop their guard and leave their windows open.
But the biggest danger is to the society because most of these young men and women go home each day without making any sales or getting enough money to keep body and soul together. Since man must live, the obvious option left open for these teeming youth is to branch into the underworld of prostitution, burglary and robbery though some may never have the desire to go that way.
As more and more people drift onto the streets, and as more and more get frustrated, we are in effect building a pool of potential criminals who out of desperation could divert their energies into doing the wrong things.
We have a big problem – a national one – that should not be addressed by making empty promises on political platforms. It is an issue that should be addressed seriously by our leaders without any partisan colouration if we are to save the future of our country.
A hungry man is an angry man and if we are not to face the wrath of the hungry youth, then we must do something now so that very soon they do not create their own traffic jams, this time not to sell but to take away what you have.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk