Who is in charge of Ghana rain?
A disturbing narrative is emerging in the aftermath of the disastrous events of that woeful Wednesday, June 3, 2015.
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This narrative has two heads; one is the notion that we are all equally responsible for the floods in Accra which led to several deaths by “Floodfire”, - fire and drowning.
According to this narrative, the main cause of the flooding is the indiscriminate building of structures in waterways and the choking of drains with household rubbish and other kinds of waste. According to this scenario, we are our own worst enemy for causing the mess in the first place.
The other head comes in the form of advice delivered by among others, the Council of State who advised us to “stop the blame game”. According to media reports, the Council advised the general public to avoid “accusatory and divisive actions and language that will compound the already difficult situation.”
One can understand the idea that we are all each other’s keeper and sentiments in that general direction. We can even stretch it further and accept that “eternal vigilance is the price of freedom”.
There are many proverbs and even clichés that speak of our common humanity and how we are “all in it together”. But we must not stretch this to the rather absurd conclusion that “we are all responsible for the disaster”.
We are not all responsible for it; some people are responsible, even more responsible than others.
Equally, one can understand the sentiments of the Council of State. We have come to rely on the sober wisdom of the Council to cool tempers and provide guidance when things get a bit hot.
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The Council of State probably meant to caution us not to make an already tense situation more fractious by indulging in unhelpful accusations, but some have interpreted this wise advice to mean that we should stop looking for and naming the culprits who are possibly responsible for the disaster.
Let us state in unmistakable terms: we cannot all be guilty and this is why: we have a social contract with the government. We have ceded some of our independent actions to the government and in return we pay our taxes and provide the resources with which the government can look after us.
The main purpose of government is to ensure our safety. Some even argue that this is the ONLY purpose of government. All the other provisions of the Constitution support this purpose.
In order to play this role, the state has created a number of institutions that are paid for and resourced from the public purse. Many of these institutions provide services while other institutions have the mandate to regulate how these services are provided and used.
Between the service providers and the regulators almost every public activity is covered. This is why we have laws, rules and regulations and these provide for the manner in which they must be enforced.
In some countries, the mandates for providing public goods and services are unambiguous. For example, Rene Marratier, a former Mayor of the French town of La Faute-sur-Mer, was jailed after floods killed 29 people in 2010.
Similarly, former Beijing mayor, Guo Jinlong and his deputy, Ji Lin, resigned after floods killed 37 people in the city in 2012. More than 200 people have died due to floods in Accra but so far no one has offered to resign, been sacked or put before any panel to answer for actions and inactions that could have contributed to such high fatalities.
The rhetoric of “we are all equally guilty” is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It frees those who are actually responsible from accepting their responsibility and might excuse some people who have committed serious offences, or even crimes.
From start to finish, there are people responsible for the rain and its aftermath. Equally, there are people who ought to have prevented the silting up of waterways with rubbish.
It is not acceptable for so many people to perish because it rained. In this modern day, the weather can be predicted to a minute and therefore for so many people to have been caught unawares is a catastrophic failure of the system.
The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMA) says on its website that it “exists to provide efficient and reliable meteorological information by collecting, processing, archiving, analysing and dissemination of findings/meteorological information to end users…”
The GMA explained its failure to inform the nation about the rainstorm by blaming disaster agencies because their faxes did not work or that they failed to “acknowledge the information”.
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This is a pathetically lame excuse for an organisation whose proactive intervention could have saved many lives. This is probably not the fault of the GMA entirely but surely, among the “end users” of its information must be the very same “disaster agencies”, the media and the general public. Therefore, to deem it sufficient to have sent information on an impending storm only once must count as a catastrophic failure.
Our media have also not developed the antennae for disaster which is necessary for public safety. We have more than 300 radio stations, dozens of TV stations, scores of newspapers and several online publications.
We should not be lacking in prompt reporting of predictable information such as the weather. But, as with the GMA, the media institutions appear not to have developed a proactive policy of seeking and reporting such information.
There are many such institutions whose actions and inactions contributed to the catastrophe. In the wake of the disaster, we have fingered littering as one of the ways by which waterways get clogged, and it is this bad behaviour that has given rise to idea that we are all responsible.
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However, there are institutions that could have stopped this menace from developing. We all know that plastic is dangerous for the environment because it does not degrade but rather stops natural processes such as re-growth of plants and flowing of water. So, where is the policy on plastics and who is enforcing it?
We have developed a sudden appetite for pulling down structures, including filling stations and many people have criticised this “knee jerk reaction”. They are right.
What happened on that Wednesday was the naked exposure of the complete absence of coordination among the many institutions that must work together to protect citizens and residents of Ghana.
We have said “never again” but this disaster may come in an even bigger form unless we learn the lessons of the recent past and the first lesson is to call those responsible by name and apportion blame.
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Many commentators have homed in on the Accra city management, especially the Metropolitan Chief Executive of Accra, Dr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, as the fall guy for the disaster. This is because, in truth, June rains and flooding in Accra cannot come as a surprise. This is a yearly affair after which the loud promise of NEVER AGAIN is made.
One would expect that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly would have its eyes on all levels of activity necessary to protect the city’s residents. Obviously this has not happened and we are all being asked to share the blame.
The idea that we are all responsible is not sustainable. We need to find out who did or didn’t do what and if that should lead to punishment so be it. This collective responsibility charade only deepens the culture in which no-one takes responsibility and in which citizens’ desperate search for answers is seen as a blame game.
We need to settle the question of responsibility through a public enquiry. So many deaths cannot be wished or washed away with the floodfire; they will return to haunt this nation.
(gapenteng@outlook .com)