Politics : Accra is crying to be saved
Anyone who has lived in Ghana and has travelled outside of the country before cannot help but contemplate the miserable state of Accra, the nation’s capital, on his or her return.
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Gradually, Accra is looking like a huge slum. A visit to various parts of the city reveals the poor conditions under which the inhabitants live.
In fact, it would not be far from the truth to say, somewhat, that a large section of people in the city are living on refuse dumps. That may be blunt but it is the truth.
In places like Agbogbloshie, Russia, Agege, Glefe, La Paz and Sukura, for instance, the insanitary conditions are just mind-boggling.
A number of factors have contributed to the mess. Among them include the attitudes of the people towards the environment, the lack of logistics to clear the rubbish that is generated, weakness on the part of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to effectively clean up the city and a most haphazard system of city planning.
The most worrisome of all the woes of the city is the slapdash manner in which houses are put up. There is no plan. The current state of general acceptance is to put up buildings anywhere there is land.
People do not bother about demarcations and area planning; so far as one has a place to sleep, that is enough. So while your house faces south, your next door neighbour‘s is tilted at an acute angle from yours and facing east.
I once travelled to Johannesburg or ‘Jozie’ as the inhabitants call it, and was amazed at the perfect order of things. The open spaces for parks and gardens; the environment is so clean it was possible to even sit on the ground without worrying.
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The streets were clean; plush residential and commercial buildings neatly arranged and the air was refreshing. This is a city where the people follow rules and obey laws.
Why should it be any different down here? If only the Accra Metropolitan Assembly was living up to its mandate and enforcing its bye-laws, we would be getting somewhere. But there is this government department called Town and Country Planning that is also contributing seriously to the confusion and disorderliness in Accra.
What really is the job of the Town and Country Planning Department? For me, it is as if they have given up on their obligation to plan for the city. The activities of the department are not being felt in any way.
In the new communities that have formed to join Accra to Kasoa, there are no public parks, no spaces left for recreational activities and very few public schools that are kilometres apart. All there is to see is a jumbled mass of concrete with little spaces in between buildings. The city is so disorganised some residents cannot even park their cars in front of their homes.
It is no wonder, therefore, that house address systems do not work in this part of the country.
Some time ago, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development tasked all metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to set in motion, a street-naming and house address arrangement. It was began in some areas, but just like everything else in Ghana, ehuro a ebedwo; there is always calm after the storm.
At the moment I do not know what our city planners are thinking over the future of Accra. There was talk some time ago of putting up a new capital.
Sad to say that with our present economic condition, any thought in that direction must be banished. It is impossible. Not now; about a 100 years from now, maybe. So why not let us put our acts together and do the right thing for those of us living in it right now?
One other thing that I have been beefing about is the indiscriminate siting of kiosks and containers. Even well-planned communities like the Airport Residential Area, Cantonments and Labone have not escaped the forceful flow of these cubicles that make the environment very unsightly; the same goes for the young men who carry yams in their hands and accost people in traffic with them.
To get the city back on track, the AMA must begin to assert its authority vested in it. Those who are doing the wrong things must be told so and made to put a stop to whatever it is they are doing or have done.
The AMA has always been indecisive. It allows people to settle in places they are not supposed to until it really becomes difficult to set things right.
The assembly must act quickly and immediately they notice a wrong and not wait until later. Accra is begging to be saved. The population of the city keeps increasing, requiring that corrective measures are put in place quickly if we are to avoid chaos.
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