KB Asante: Voice From Afar column

I learn that the Survey School area is to be released to developers for pretty shopping malls, ostensibly to ease the monotony of ugly surroundings; but in reality, it is to make money for the greedy few.

The Survey School itself is to be erased from sight and memory.

If this is true, I hope those concerned will desist from this desecration of heritage sites which should inspire confidence in true patriots.

Many of us do not know enough about the past to make us proud and confident.

It is pathetic how films we made in the early days of independence were destroyed when we sold the Film Unit.

In the same way we appear to be destroying valuable documents relating to our city and town plans and to boundaries with our neighbours.

We should retrieve and preserve valuable documents and old equipment in the Survey Department and the school even if we abandon the alleged proposed desecration.

I wonder how much those who want to “improve” the Survey Department by undertaking the recent institutional changes know about its history.

Why are the Survey Department and the Department of Lands out of the institutions of government sited at Cantonments, the military quarter of Accra?

The Survey Department was established to work with the military to open up the country for development.

Guggisberg, the extraordinary colonial Governor who gave the Gold Coast its unique Development Plan which produced Korle-Bu, Achimota and Takoradi, was a soldier and an engineer who believed in opening up the country as a first step to meaningful development.

The Survey Department was to work closely with the army to determine the topography and topology of the country.

The relationship and cooperation between the two, especially in remote areas is obvious. Many of the “labourers” who carried the tents and the instruments of the surveyors were ex-army men.

And so it was that the common language among surveyors became Hausa.

The Gold Coast surveyors did not disappoint Guggisberg. Many studied on their own and could find their way through the forest by the position of the stars and azimuth.

We would do well to make the Survey School a part of any useful building to show what our forebears did and to establish the confidence to believe that “we can”.

If the Survey School is no longer suitable as a place for instruction, it could house old instruments and documents of interest.

There is a tendency to destroy “old papers” in many national institutions including ministries and government departments.

This should stop. We had a law and practice which enjoined the “Government Archivist” to inspect documents before their disposal so that interesting or useful ones were preserved at the National Archives.

Keeping records is not a futile academic exercise.

One example will suffice. President Yameogo of Upper Volta (now Burkina-Faso) once complained that Ghana had encroached on Upper Volta land. I was asked to deal with the matter.

I consulted the Survey Department and was assured that the land belonged to Ghana.

I reported to President Nkrumah and he accordingly informed President Yameogo who did not agree and so it was suggested that experts from the two sides should meet.

At the meeting Upper Volta brought in French experts who were armed with a copy of the Anglo-French Beaconing Commission Report of 1901.

It showed that Ghana did not have much of a case. President Nkrumah did not agree and Upper Volta took the matter to the OAU.

The Ghana leadership had cold feet at the OAU hearing and I was asked to mount the defence.

I pleaded prescriptive and other rights and the OAU declined judgement but requested the two parties to resolve the matter.

The matter remained unresolved until the military government set up after the 1966 coup surrendered the territory to Burkina Faso.

I have been informed subsequently that there were documents at the Survey Department to prove Ghana’s ownership of the land.

I do hope that we study the functions and history of institutions before we modify or change their role or structure.

I know however that when highly placed persons do not know what they are to do they act impulsively and are confused by their own action.

Our leaders of today however have a lot to do.

The question of jobs for the youth trained by our high schools and tertiary institutions cries for an answer.

We should not run away from our responsibility by blaming teachers and professors for not teaching creative skills or not preparing students for jobs which are non-existent or envisaged.

We should not blame the youth for eschewing entrepreneurship when our shops sell only what is produced outside Ghana.

Our high authorities should attend to real issues and leave institutions like the Survey Department to do their work.

The Survey Department should not be emaciated.

The Survey School should not be destroyed.

The national interest should take precedence over projects which beautify the eyes and enrich the pockets of a few.