I am tempted to believe that the torrential rains that came with the season (albeit, the earlier predictions of drought), is easing and that should be a huge relief for many citizens especially those living in flood prone areas of Accra, Swedru, Keta, and many parts of the Country.
Aside the destruction and the havoc the torrential rains have caused to life and property, I believe it is about time we considered housing and construction policy that harnessed the huge volume of rainfall year in and year out. I am sure that the destruction that the rains leave in their wake season after season would have been minimal but for human activities that impede the flow of surface and underground water at the onset of the season.
It is common k knowledge that many of us ignore warnings of the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (acting on behalf of government) to either pull down or stop the construction of structures in unapproved areas, especially on waterways, near dams, high tension masts, electricity poles, railway lines, streets, rivers and lagoons.
We are however quick to blame nature and even government for the woes that we suffer due to our own negligence as a result of our haphazard building and housing practices. There are areas in Ghana that should not and must not be used for any residential purpose but we ignore all cautions and develop these places. A case in point is the areas demarcated as earthquake zones along the Akwapim-Togo-Atakura ranges and the Mcarthy Hills area.
Take a walk to these places and u will be amazed at the fast pace of human earth movement activities in these areas. In the spur of the moment, residents around these disaster zones are having a field’s day and they have totally forgotten that their lives could change overnight in the case that the dreaded occurs to them. It is at that moment that our government would be running helter-skelter in search of relief items for victims.
A strict adherence to building and planning regulations, layouts and prohibitions would have saved us millions of cedis annually instead to going through the cycle of rebuilding and reconstruction after each rainy season.
In many of these instances, we are the cause of our own problems and yet we tend to believe that governments have done either little or nothing at all to help the situation. I am not sure there would be much to be done aside constructing drains within the limited spaces left of the waterways as a remedy to the situation which in the long run does very little to avert the chaos.
As the parliament of Ghana is lacing her boots to deal with the STX Ghana-Korean Housing Agreement which will help reduce the housing deficit in the country, it is important for the negotiators of this deal and the parliament of Ghana to ensure that the housing project incorporates a “rain-harvest scheme” that would help trap rain water for domestic consumption by those dwelling in the apartments.
I draw great inspiration from the Amedzofe Township in the Volta Region of Ghana, as to how a properly planned and managed rain harvest policy has kept the community water-sufficient till date. Amedzofe is the highest human settlement in Ghana. Mountain Gemi and the Amedzofe falls are two major tourist attractions that the community boasts of.
The high altitude of the area and the rugged nature of its topography make it very difficult for pipe-borne water to be supplied in the area so the community depends heavily on natural springs flowing in the mountains and the abundance of rain per the climate, for their water needs.
At the E.P Training College and the Amedzofe Guest House and many private residences in the township, right from Vane, Gbadzeame to Amedzofe, many of the property have water reservoirs buried under a portion of the buildings. It goes to say that the early Basel Missionaries who built the town, the college and the infrastructure there envisaged the water supply difficulties and adequately designed their buildings and structures to harness the abundance of the annual torrential rainfall for domestic and commercial use. In the rainy season, they shut their reservoirs and depend on the tasty natural springs for domestic consumption, while in the dry season when the pressure on the Springs are great, they augment their supply with harvested rain water until the rainy next season.
It would be a perfect replication of this ideal if the management of the STX Construction Company and the Government of Ghana agrees that in view of the unresolved pipe-borne water deficit that has hit the capital and many parts of the country, this agreement must as a matter of need, incorporate a rain-harvest component in the construction such that the apartments, when complete will have a good stock of water supply throughout the year for domestic use.
The company must established a central treatment and distribution point for the harvested rain to all apartments for domestic consumption so that we can move away from the over-dependence on the erratic pipe-borne water supply by the Ghana Water Company Limited and Aqua Vittens Rand Ltd. We could either directly consume the water of use the trapped water only for other purposes besides direct human consumption, i.e. washing of vehicles, watering the lawns and parks, fire fighting, water fountains, cleaning, laundry, etc .
The pressure then on pipe-borne water supply will be greatly reduced and conserved. Readers would bare me out that much of the water the flow in our taps are unclean and thus many prefer to drink sachet water and use the pipe-borne but use the tap water for other uses aside direct human consumption. The Ghana Water Company Limited must address this concern in other to restore public trust and confidence in the product of the company.
The enactment of government policy to tie the hands of building contractors and housing companies is paramount if indeed we are interested in resolving our water deficit while curtailing the havoc of annual torrential rains on our lives and property. The Ministry of Housing and water Resources headed by Honourable Alban Bagbin, must consider this as a matter of policy for consideration of cabinet before the STX deal is ratified.
It behoves on the Ministry to push this policy to the entire Housing and construction Industry not limited to STX-Korea only. The local industry heavily dominated by the likes of GREDA, Regimanuel Gray Ltd, Hydraform, Maria-O’Sullivan, HFC, etc must be brought under the policy which stipulates that all constructions projects (residential and office accommodation) must be provided with rain-gutters and Underground water reservoirs of a size commensurate with the size of the building.
If a policy of the sort existed during the Nkrumah Regime, I am sure that much of the surface water wastefully flowing into our polluted rivers and drains after every torrential rainfall would have been harvested or trapped and put into much more beneficial use. This would equally reduce the amount of money households spend on the purchase of water from water tanker operators while in the long run reduce the impact of flooding in some areas of the country.
A community that has made good this practise is the Dzodze-Penyi Township in the Ketu-North Constituency of the Volta Region of Ghana. For many decades, Dzodze-Penyi has no supply of pipe-borne water and the water table in the area is so deep that sank wells and boreholes are virtually dry or their contents unhygienic. The dwellers thus have constructed their own water reservoirs buried in the belly of the earth for the storage of water in the rainy season.
Dzodze and many of the surrounding communities dedicated to rain-harvest can only look forward to the rains with smiles as they know that they can only benefit from the blessing of nature, while many of us in the capital and elsewhere dread the onset of each rainy season. Some even pray to God to either reduce the volume of rains or altogether avert the consequences the heavy rains leave in its wake.
It is not late to introduce this idea into our Housing and construction policy in Ghana, with the full backing of the parliament of Ghana using the STX-Korean Housing Project as a starter and a pacesetter in the industry.
It is about time we did something about the abundance of rains in our atmosphere especially within the raining season to help address our water supply deficit and the harvesting of water for domestic and Industrial use as a matter of government policy.
Together, we can make change happen in Ghana if we pushed our parliament to consider this idea as a workable one so we can task the STX-Korean Housing Company to put it in fruition for the sake of the generation yet unborn. It will be a betrayal of trust for you and I to retire in our old age only to suffer the consequences of perennial torrential rains if we have the opportunity to make change the status quo in our generation.
The Consumer Protection Agency, the Civil Society organisations operating in the water sector, Chiefs, students Unions among other interest groups can support this dream so we can make it happen for mother Ghana.
By making rain-harvest a policy decision by this Mills administration and this Parliament, our generation would be remembered for delivering change in the Housing and Construction Industry that will benefit mother Ghana for many years to come. This is one sure way to trap the little drops of rain that run into crevices, gutters, drains, gullies and congregate into dangerous floods that kill, destroy and break our social and economic activities.
Over to you, Honourable Bagbin!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
DANGER LOOMS AS THE CLOCK TICKS ON THE FLOODS!
Yes! I fear the outbreak of an epidemic even before the floods find their way through homes, workplaces, under bridges and over roads and rails till they unleash their accumulated shingles into the sea.
Take a look around your environment, the streets, market places and worse of all the huge undeveloped drains! It looks worse than scary to me. The Ghana Meteorological Agency warns or terrible conditions ahead and that scare me to the hilt!
It is totally unacceptable at this moment of grief for anyone to politicize the havoc that the rains and the floods have visited on many citizens within and outside the capital whereas we should be thinking through the next stage of managing this disaster, the worst in many years.
We are paying heavily for the systemic failure on the side of planning, supervision and the respect for our laws as regards building on ramsar sites and on unapproved designations.
We are also paying a huge prize for the indiscipline on the part of many of property owners and contractors acquire, develop and build all manner of structures anywhere and anyhow without any recourse to considerations of the nature of the land, topography, soil structure, architectural design, environmental threats among others.
While the Ghana Navy and the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) is battling with providing bedspreads, tents, food and clothing to many displaced persons, the worst might hit us unannounced, in the event of a possible epidemic outbreak especially in the unplanned and haphazardly laid out areas of Ashaiman, Nima, Agbogbloshie,and Aladjo.
An observation I have made around the capital is that garbage is consistently amassing on may streets and market places, probably due to the inability of the refuse collection trucks to collect the garbage for disposal at the land filled sites as many of the roads linking the sites have either been flooded or completely rendered unmotorable.
The quantum of the garbage would surely multiply in coming days if the rains do not cease falling and the floods cease swelling any time soon.
This is bad news for us especially to those living in flood-prone areas. The garbage is likely to be washed into the drains and the gutters by the rains and carried across long distances and dumped in unknown areas thus worsening the already hydra-headed sanitation problems.
Worst still would be the possibility of some unrecovered and decomposing bodies, trapped under some bridges and drains, somewhere along the channel of the flood. The mess, the stench, the decomposing and fermentation of the garbage all put together coupled with destruction of many Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit latrines (KVIPs) and the flooding of septic tanks (man holes) would break forth a cholera epidemic that would demand millions of Ghana cedis to deal with.
Already we have a growing factor of the H1N1 outbreak on our hands and any outbreak of cholera in the ensuing weeks would either stretch our health facilities or collapse them altogether.
Dr. Benjamin Kumbour, Minister of Health together with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, must get themselves ready to deal with this angle of the flood as attention seem to be more focused on the politics of the rains and the distribution of relief and the mourning of the dead in some homes and communities.
This is not the time to haggle over which house should be demolished or what member of Parliament is frustrating the work of a District Assembly but we must shift gear into making immediate arrangements to protect the larger public against any health hazard the floods and the terrible excesses it is likely to pose to the wider public health.
I fear for the market women in and around the Pedestrian Shopping Mall at Odawna near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, as the entire environment stinks and the mess could be worsened by the fury of the floods.
The Ministry of Information and Health must commence an intensive education campaign (just as they are doing with the H1N1 virus) to immediately sensitize citizens on the likely health threats that the floods are likely to pose as many man-holes, bucket latrines, KVIPs and refuse dumps have either been washed away or completely dissolved in the rushing waters of the flood.
Let us move into action, for the clock ticks onto a looming catastrophe!
Take a look around your environment, the streets, market places and worse of all the huge undeveloped drains! It looks worse than scary to me. The Ghana Meteorological Agency warns or terrible conditions ahead and that scare me to the hilt!
It is totally unacceptable at this moment of grief for anyone to politicize the havoc that the rains and the floods have visited on many citizens within and outside the capital whereas we should be thinking through the next stage of managing this disaster, the worst in many years.
We are paying heavily for the systemic failure on the side of planning, supervision and the respect for our laws as regards building on ramsar sites and on unapproved designations.
We are also paying a huge prize for the indiscipline on the part of many of property owners and contractors acquire, develop and build all manner of structures anywhere and anyhow without any recourse to considerations of the nature of the land, topography, soil structure, architectural design, environmental threats among others.
While the Ghana Navy and the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) is battling with providing bedspreads, tents, food and clothing to many displaced persons, the worst might hit us unannounced, in the event of a possible epidemic outbreak especially in the unplanned and haphazardly laid out areas of Ashaiman, Nima, Agbogbloshie,and Aladjo.
An observation I have made around the capital is that garbage is consistently amassing on may streets and market places, probably due to the inability of the refuse collection trucks to collect the garbage for disposal at the land filled sites as many of the roads linking the sites have either been flooded or completely rendered unmotorable.
The quantum of the garbage would surely multiply in coming days if the rains do not cease falling and the floods cease swelling any time soon.
This is bad news for us especially to those living in flood-prone areas. The garbage is likely to be washed into the drains and the gutters by the rains and carried across long distances and dumped in unknown areas thus worsening the already hydra-headed sanitation problems.
Worst still would be the possibility of some unrecovered and decomposing bodies, trapped under some bridges and drains, somewhere along the channel of the flood. The mess, the stench, the decomposing and fermentation of the garbage all put together coupled with destruction of many Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit latrines (KVIPs) and the flooding of septic tanks (man holes) would break forth a cholera epidemic that would demand millions of Ghana cedis to deal with.
Already we have a growing factor of the H1N1 outbreak on our hands and any outbreak of cholera in the ensuing weeks would either stretch our health facilities or collapse them altogether.
Dr. Benjamin Kumbour, Minister of Health together with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, must get themselves ready to deal with this angle of the flood as attention seem to be more focused on the politics of the rains and the distribution of relief and the mourning of the dead in some homes and communities.
This is not the time to haggle over which house should be demolished or what member of Parliament is frustrating the work of a District Assembly but we must shift gear into making immediate arrangements to protect the larger public against any health hazard the floods and the terrible excesses it is likely to pose to the wider public health.
I fear for the market women in and around the Pedestrian Shopping Mall at Odawna near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, as the entire environment stinks and the mess could be worsened by the fury of the floods.
The Ministry of Information and Health must commence an intensive education campaign (just as they are doing with the H1N1 virus) to immediately sensitize citizens on the likely health threats that the floods are likely to pose as many man-holes, bucket latrines, KVIPs and refuse dumps have either been washed away or completely dissolved in the rushing waters of the flood.
Let us move into action, for the clock ticks onto a looming catastrophe!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The Rawlingses & The Kufuors Any roles to support the development agenda of the nation?
By Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
President Barack H. Obama has come and gone but he left in his wake memories that will forever linger with this generation until perhaps he comes back some day to refresh us.
I must congratulate the Atta Mills-led government for the very simple and down-to-earth manner in which activities celebrating Obama’s historic visit to Ghana were handled in the face of obvious financial challenges confronting the country.
Equally deserving of commendation is the open arms with which President John Evans Mills embraced his political opponents including those who rated him undeserving of the office of president, to the tarmac of the Kotoka International Airport to welcome the visiting US President.
This is what I call leadership: making the best of relationships and resources for the common good of the people. President Mills did not submerge the opposition but rallied them around his good self in branding Ghana as an “adolescent democracy” in the eyes of the world.
It is only in Ghana that competitors in a bitter election can quickly recover from their age old rivalries and come together for a common purpose on a memorable day as that of the visit of Barack Obama.
We all deserve credit and I cannot agree more with President Obama when he stressed that “perhaps the minority deserves much commendation as the majority”.
“Domestication”
The breakfast meeting between Obama, the President and the two ex-presidents was the next attraction to the whole programme. There was life and humour amidst serious talk at that breakfast meeting that saw Nana Konadu Rawlings and Theresa Kufuor with their respective sweethearts, together on the same platform after a long period of unhealthy exchanges of cross-fire between the two former first gentlemen of the land.
President Obama, the social-democrat that he is, was more than delighted to eat with the President and the two ex-presidents the available ration and did not visit the loo as many had feared he might! All these tastes of the “domestication” of the visit added serious colour, culture and an African courtesy to the entire programme. This is indeed a feather in the cap of Ghana’s protocol department.
“Bad blood”
Soon after breakfast, Radio Gold and TV3 granted interviews to the two ex-Presidents. While Jerry Rawlings promised that the perceived “bad blood” between himself and John Kufuor would be dealt with, John Kufuor quickly riposted that there was no “bad blood” between the two of them. Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor might not be enemies but they share different political ideologies and that makes them political opponents.
We may have our internal differences as individuals and sympathizers of different political parties, but when it comes to forging a common tie to project the image of Ghana beyond our borders, it is imperative for the government to do all that can be done to put the two gentlemen on the forefront.
Tasking them with specific roles to play on behalf of government in order to harness their contribution to the common good of the nation will not be too little too late.
To President Mills who is held in high esteem by the international community for his commitment to the rule of law and, freedom of speech, multi-party democracy and his readiness to combat corruption, drug-trafficking and ostentatious lifestyle as a sitting head of state, Obama’s visit is a real exercise to legitimize his office and Ghana’s “adolescent democratic” credentials of Ghana.
Konadu and Theresa
Mrs. Konadu Rawlings and Mrs. Theresa Kufuor might not be friends but in times as these when we need each of them to play one role or the other to support the development agenda of the nation, appointing the former first ladies as ambassadors of one government initiative or the other under the Mills administration will be very rewarding and a major plus to our “adolescent democracy” in order to attract major and minor policy advantages from all over the world so that we can perpetually remain on top as the beacon of democratic hope to a continent bedeviled with undemocratic regimes, crime, hunger, wars and diseases.
A move in this direction from the President, assures any sitting president that upon a peaceful transition and handing-over, one does not only retire, sit at home on a pension and tell mythical tales to his grandchildren but one is equally useful and respected as an ex-president to partake in the activities of the successive government. This will discourage the temptation of doing all one could, fair or foul, to perpetrate his party in office.
God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!
P/S: this article was originally published in July 2009.
(Edited: by Alhaji Haruna Atta, Editor of The Accra Daily Mail Newspaper)
http://www.modernghana.com/news/227576/160/can-mrs-rawlings-and-mrs-kufuor-ever-be-friends.html
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=165362
President Barack H. Obama has come and gone but he left in his wake memories that will forever linger with this generation until perhaps he comes back some day to refresh us.
I must congratulate the Atta Mills-led government for the very simple and down-to-earth manner in which activities celebrating Obama’s historic visit to Ghana were handled in the face of obvious financial challenges confronting the country.
Equally deserving of commendation is the open arms with which President John Evans Mills embraced his political opponents including those who rated him undeserving of the office of president, to the tarmac of the Kotoka International Airport to welcome the visiting US President.
This is what I call leadership: making the best of relationships and resources for the common good of the people. President Mills did not submerge the opposition but rallied them around his good self in branding Ghana as an “adolescent democracy” in the eyes of the world.
It is only in Ghana that competitors in a bitter election can quickly recover from their age old rivalries and come together for a common purpose on a memorable day as that of the visit of Barack Obama.
We all deserve credit and I cannot agree more with President Obama when he stressed that “perhaps the minority deserves much commendation as the majority”.
“Domestication”
The breakfast meeting between Obama, the President and the two ex-presidents was the next attraction to the whole programme. There was life and humour amidst serious talk at that breakfast meeting that saw Nana Konadu Rawlings and Theresa Kufuor with their respective sweethearts, together on the same platform after a long period of unhealthy exchanges of cross-fire between the two former first gentlemen of the land.
President Obama, the social-democrat that he is, was more than delighted to eat with the President and the two ex-presidents the available ration and did not visit the loo as many had feared he might! All these tastes of the “domestication” of the visit added serious colour, culture and an African courtesy to the entire programme. This is indeed a feather in the cap of Ghana’s protocol department.
“Bad blood”
Soon after breakfast, Radio Gold and TV3 granted interviews to the two ex-Presidents. While Jerry Rawlings promised that the perceived “bad blood” between himself and John Kufuor would be dealt with, John Kufuor quickly riposted that there was no “bad blood” between the two of them. Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor might not be enemies but they share different political ideologies and that makes them political opponents.
We may have our internal differences as individuals and sympathizers of different political parties, but when it comes to forging a common tie to project the image of Ghana beyond our borders, it is imperative for the government to do all that can be done to put the two gentlemen on the forefront.
Tasking them with specific roles to play on behalf of government in order to harness their contribution to the common good of the nation will not be too little too late.
To President Mills who is held in high esteem by the international community for his commitment to the rule of law and, freedom of speech, multi-party democracy and his readiness to combat corruption, drug-trafficking and ostentatious lifestyle as a sitting head of state, Obama’s visit is a real exercise to legitimize his office and Ghana’s “adolescent democratic” credentials of Ghana.
Konadu and Theresa
Mrs. Konadu Rawlings and Mrs. Theresa Kufuor might not be friends but in times as these when we need each of them to play one role or the other to support the development agenda of the nation, appointing the former first ladies as ambassadors of one government initiative or the other under the Mills administration will be very rewarding and a major plus to our “adolescent democracy” in order to attract major and minor policy advantages from all over the world so that we can perpetually remain on top as the beacon of democratic hope to a continent bedeviled with undemocratic regimes, crime, hunger, wars and diseases.
A move in this direction from the President, assures any sitting president that upon a peaceful transition and handing-over, one does not only retire, sit at home on a pension and tell mythical tales to his grandchildren but one is equally useful and respected as an ex-president to partake in the activities of the successive government. This will discourage the temptation of doing all one could, fair or foul, to perpetrate his party in office.
God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!
P/S: this article was originally published in July 2009.
(Edited: by Alhaji Haruna Atta, Editor of The Accra Daily Mail Newspaper)
http://www.modernghana.com/news/227576/160/can-mrs-rawlings-and-mrs-kufuor-ever-be-friends.html
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=165362
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Hannah, Bagbin (Honourables), ”you do not drink tap water, I bet you don’t!
I am getting increasingly impatient at the sheer wickedness of Aqua Vittens Rand Limited, contract managers for the Ghana Water Company Limited. Consumers have complained about the poor services of this company especially in the area of water treatment and distribution but very little has been achieved in improving on their services so far.
Coming on the back of the recent adjustments in utility tariffs and the demand for improved services by many consumers, it is only reasonable that AVRL comes clear about their plans for improving on water treatment, expansion and distribution of clean pipe-borne water to many rural and urban communities who are currently in dire need of good drinking water.
Not many can afford to feed their homes with bottled mineral or sachet water. Even to those who can afford it, it adds to their daily expenses at home and in their workplaces. In many rural communities, wells and boreholes are the only source of good and healthy drinking water, but can same for Aqua Vittens Rand Limited for their services?
I have noticed that pipe borne water has fallen short of everything close to quality and standards. It is irregular in flow, and terribly dirty. Yes, terribly dirty!
Just store a bucket of pipe borne water overnight and take a good look at the water the next morning.
Rolls of dirt and brownish substances are visible to the naked eye which immediately deters any sane consumer from using the water to wash his/her face or to brush his teeth let alone to dare drinking.
Even if you would use it for anything edible, one has to be sure that it was thoroughly boiled to eliminate an obvious danger it might pose a consumer. I shiver to imagine what one would discover if samples are put to laboratory examination.
Consumers are faced with even worse fate as many of these sachet water companies cannot be physically located via registered addresses, let alone offer themselves to the Food and Drugs Board or the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Standards Board for routine inspection. Same can be said of the so-called herbal clinics and companies bottling all manner of unknown concoctions for public consumption.
While these unscrupulous businessmen and women are cashing in on the silent boycott for the consumption of AVRL managed pipe borne water at home, at work places, in public events, festivals and funerals, the AVRL seems to be indifferent to this lack of public confidence in their product, knowing too well, that they hold an absolute monopoly over public water management, treatment and distribution in Ghana.
If the AVRL had a conscious as manager of an essential commodity like water, they would have shown that commitment and corporate seriousness to avert the sheer wickedness and treachery they have shown their clients thus far.
Many of the communicable diseases are water borne especially via the consumption of untreated water. We are very helpless as it stands now because, it appears the AVRL has gone to bed on their duties and the laws to check those who exploit consumers are either absent or totally useless in protecting the citizenry.
Adding salt to our injuries is a Consumer Protection Agency that is more obsessed with complex issues of advertisements and telephone bills than the basic things that kill the common man on the streets.
Hon Alban Bagbin and Dr. Hannah Bissiw should wake up to this call and go after AVRL to do the right thing and treat us with dignity and respect while ensuring that a legal framework is developed to deal with the proliferation of all manner of sachet water companies who are worsening our environmental and sanitation problems.
What has it benefitted Ghana for a Minister or Deputy Minister to wake up at five (5) in the morning and drive to a radio or TV station to speak grammar on some useless newspaper publications, instead of using those few hours to either have enough rest to enable him meet the day’s challenges or to get to his office deal with some outstanding pressing need hours before scores of visitors and meetings clog his schedule?
Our public officials should desist from going on these media platforms to engage in endless debates and sit in their offices and work for a better Ghana.
We did not vote for them to speak grammar, but to take the timely actions to hasten our development agenda.
I do not remember the last time I drunk pipe borne water and I am not ready to risk my health in consuming the unclean and unhealthy water dripping down our taps.
It is a disgrace that we have sat down to see our citizens boycott the consumption of water, a basic necessity of life, while we run after sachet and bottled mineral water.
Ghana needs us alive to live our dreams.
Hon. Bagbin and Dr. Bissiw, Minister and Deputy for Housing and Water Resources, should not stand aside and watch while our citizens fall victim to preventable waterborne diseases.
Coming on the back of the recent adjustments in utility tariffs and the demand for improved services by many consumers, it is only reasonable that AVRL comes clear about their plans for improving on water treatment, expansion and distribution of clean pipe-borne water to many rural and urban communities who are currently in dire need of good drinking water.
Not many can afford to feed their homes with bottled mineral or sachet water. Even to those who can afford it, it adds to their daily expenses at home and in their workplaces. In many rural communities, wells and boreholes are the only source of good and healthy drinking water, but can same for Aqua Vittens Rand Limited for their services?
I have noticed that pipe borne water has fallen short of everything close to quality and standards. It is irregular in flow, and terribly dirty. Yes, terribly dirty!
Just store a bucket of pipe borne water overnight and take a good look at the water the next morning.
Rolls of dirt and brownish substances are visible to the naked eye which immediately deters any sane consumer from using the water to wash his/her face or to brush his teeth let alone to dare drinking.
Even if you would use it for anything edible, one has to be sure that it was thoroughly boiled to eliminate an obvious danger it might pose a consumer. I shiver to imagine what one would discover if samples are put to laboratory examination.
Consumers are faced with even worse fate as many of these sachet water companies cannot be physically located via registered addresses, let alone offer themselves to the Food and Drugs Board or the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Standards Board for routine inspection. Same can be said of the so-called herbal clinics and companies bottling all manner of unknown concoctions for public consumption.
While these unscrupulous businessmen and women are cashing in on the silent boycott for the consumption of AVRL managed pipe borne water at home, at work places, in public events, festivals and funerals, the AVRL seems to be indifferent to this lack of public confidence in their product, knowing too well, that they hold an absolute monopoly over public water management, treatment and distribution in Ghana.
If the AVRL had a conscious as manager of an essential commodity like water, they would have shown that commitment and corporate seriousness to avert the sheer wickedness and treachery they have shown their clients thus far.
Many of the communicable diseases are water borne especially via the consumption of untreated water. We are very helpless as it stands now because, it appears the AVRL has gone to bed on their duties and the laws to check those who exploit consumers are either absent or totally useless in protecting the citizenry.
Adding salt to our injuries is a Consumer Protection Agency that is more obsessed with complex issues of advertisements and telephone bills than the basic things that kill the common man on the streets.
Hon Alban Bagbin and Dr. Hannah Bissiw should wake up to this call and go after AVRL to do the right thing and treat us with dignity and respect while ensuring that a legal framework is developed to deal with the proliferation of all manner of sachet water companies who are worsening our environmental and sanitation problems.
What has it benefitted Ghana for a Minister or Deputy Minister to wake up at five (5) in the morning and drive to a radio or TV station to speak grammar on some useless newspaper publications, instead of using those few hours to either have enough rest to enable him meet the day’s challenges or to get to his office deal with some outstanding pressing need hours before scores of visitors and meetings clog his schedule?
Our public officials should desist from going on these media platforms to engage in endless debates and sit in their offices and work for a better Ghana.
We did not vote for them to speak grammar, but to take the timely actions to hasten our development agenda.
I do not remember the last time I drunk pipe borne water and I am not ready to risk my health in consuming the unclean and unhealthy water dripping down our taps.
It is a disgrace that we have sat down to see our citizens boycott the consumption of water, a basic necessity of life, while we run after sachet and bottled mineral water.
Ghana needs us alive to live our dreams.
Hon. Bagbin and Dr. Bissiw, Minister and Deputy for Housing and Water Resources, should not stand aside and watch while our citizens fall victim to preventable waterborne diseases.
Monday, June 14, 2010
HIGH ELECTRICITY TARIFFS…COULD ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING HELP SAVE COST?
Recent upward adjustment of electricity tariffs by some 43 percentage difference points to a bitter reality that electricity and water tariffs are not going to come down anytime soon though government has heavily subsidized these two amenities soon after the announcements were made.
In fact, it is argued that these subsidies in themselves have rather plunged the utility companies into huge debts as the subsidies were hardly paid to the companies.
As consumers, we have contributed to the waste in the system and added by our actions and inactions have paid more for electricity and water consumption.
It is a common sight that many streetlights, security lights, and many appliances are left on in our homes and offices and other work sites though they might not be in use.
A case in point is the refusal of the Electricity Company of Ghana to turn off street lights at the break of dawn in some communities. Consumers are rather billed to pay for the waste we did not help create in anyway.
Again in our homes and offices, it is common to keep empty fridges, air conditioners, and other electrical gadgets still turned on while we might not be in need of them within a certain time frame, not to talk about their economical use in the rainy season when temperatures are mostly tolerable.
We are tempted to use the water kettle, heater, the hair drier or the Microwave even though using the gas cooker for a few minutes as the most cost effective substitute could do our budget and our health a lot of good.
In short, we lack a sense of responsibility and savings as regards the judicious use of power, water and other resources.
An emerging trend development in our building and construction sector that must be encouraged by all and sundry is the use of transparent roofs that harness the power of the sunlight to lighten even the inner chambers of offices and buildings without the recourse to electric bulbs as the sole source of illumination.
The roofing of the Ring Road Head office of the Ghana Union Assurance Building, directly opposite the Head office of the State Insurance Company (SIC), the head office of Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo, the Old Parliamentary Affairs building near the Kofi Annan ICT centre and a few homes around cantonments challenged my thoughts as regards the use of architecture and its technology to save the high cost of electricity consumption to many individuals and institutions in the long run.
Foremost, the design of the buildings mentioned is such that the roofs are transparent and thus sunlight sips into the entire floors of the buildings.
Automatically, the cost that come with the use of electricity bulbs on many floors on the building is minimised if not total eliminated and this will definitely translate on their daily electricity consumption of those using this technology.
At nightfall in these homes, one could even enjoy the beauty of the skies from the comfort of your living room.
It would be very prudent if central air conditioning systems are encouraged in huge buildings, churches and mosques, especially the ones that are either under construction or those still on the draftsman’s table, instead on the single unit air conditioners dotted all over the windows of offices all over the country. I believe that the use of the central air conditional system would equally help save cost of electricity consumption and this would help reduce the overhead cost of production of some firms, offices or organisations. Huge savings would be made and channelled into other areas to promote the efficiency of the organization.
Furthermore, the stakeholders in the Energy sector must help design and promote a vigorous educational campaign, slogans and messages to instil in consumers the most effective and efficient energy saving practises so that we do not get to this point again in the future where the only remedy to ensuring effective service delivery by the Electricity Company of Ghana is via tariff increase.
Consumers must be encouraged through radio and television programmes, school outreach programmes, paraphernalia, text messages, Church services, mosque worships, and any other medium possible to promote a best practises to help consumers conserve and use electricity and water wisely or else we risk paying much higher tariffs in future for losses which could have been avoided through education.
The Consumer Protection Agency must be very interested in this action so that they can take the education even closer to the rural areas especially those who do not have the benefit of the power of radio and television.
It is about time our engineers considered new and modern ways of building and construction that would help conserve power and make use of these amenities to our maximum benefit but at the cheapest cost possible.
In fact, it is argued that these subsidies in themselves have rather plunged the utility companies into huge debts as the subsidies were hardly paid to the companies.
As consumers, we have contributed to the waste in the system and added by our actions and inactions have paid more for electricity and water consumption.
It is a common sight that many streetlights, security lights, and many appliances are left on in our homes and offices and other work sites though they might not be in use.
A case in point is the refusal of the Electricity Company of Ghana to turn off street lights at the break of dawn in some communities. Consumers are rather billed to pay for the waste we did not help create in anyway.
Again in our homes and offices, it is common to keep empty fridges, air conditioners, and other electrical gadgets still turned on while we might not be in need of them within a certain time frame, not to talk about their economical use in the rainy season when temperatures are mostly tolerable.
We are tempted to use the water kettle, heater, the hair drier or the Microwave even though using the gas cooker for a few minutes as the most cost effective substitute could do our budget and our health a lot of good.
In short, we lack a sense of responsibility and savings as regards the judicious use of power, water and other resources.
An emerging trend development in our building and construction sector that must be encouraged by all and sundry is the use of transparent roofs that harness the power of the sunlight to lighten even the inner chambers of offices and buildings without the recourse to electric bulbs as the sole source of illumination.
The roofing of the Ring Road Head office of the Ghana Union Assurance Building, directly opposite the Head office of the State Insurance Company (SIC), the head office of Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo, the Old Parliamentary Affairs building near the Kofi Annan ICT centre and a few homes around cantonments challenged my thoughts as regards the use of architecture and its technology to save the high cost of electricity consumption to many individuals and institutions in the long run.
Foremost, the design of the buildings mentioned is such that the roofs are transparent and thus sunlight sips into the entire floors of the buildings.
Automatically, the cost that come with the use of electricity bulbs on many floors on the building is minimised if not total eliminated and this will definitely translate on their daily electricity consumption of those using this technology.
At nightfall in these homes, one could even enjoy the beauty of the skies from the comfort of your living room.
It would be very prudent if central air conditioning systems are encouraged in huge buildings, churches and mosques, especially the ones that are either under construction or those still on the draftsman’s table, instead on the single unit air conditioners dotted all over the windows of offices all over the country. I believe that the use of the central air conditional system would equally help save cost of electricity consumption and this would help reduce the overhead cost of production of some firms, offices or organisations. Huge savings would be made and channelled into other areas to promote the efficiency of the organization.
Furthermore, the stakeholders in the Energy sector must help design and promote a vigorous educational campaign, slogans and messages to instil in consumers the most effective and efficient energy saving practises so that we do not get to this point again in the future where the only remedy to ensuring effective service delivery by the Electricity Company of Ghana is via tariff increase.
Consumers must be encouraged through radio and television programmes, school outreach programmes, paraphernalia, text messages, Church services, mosque worships, and any other medium possible to promote a best practises to help consumers conserve and use electricity and water wisely or else we risk paying much higher tariffs in future for losses which could have been avoided through education.
The Consumer Protection Agency must be very interested in this action so that they can take the education even closer to the rural areas especially those who do not have the benefit of the power of radio and television.
It is about time our engineers considered new and modern ways of building and construction that would help conserve power and make use of these amenities to our maximum benefit but at the cheapest cost possible.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
PROPOSALS FOR THE CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE:
Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
P.O Box MS 422
New Achimota
Accra
June 9, 2010
The Executive Secretary
Constitutional review Committee
Republic of Ghana
Accra
Dear Sir,
PROPOSALS FOR THE CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE:
I wish to make the following proposals for your consideration as a citizen of Ghana to the Constitutional Review Process;
1. APPOINTMENT OF MINISTERS FROM PARLIAMENT:
I propose this provision is reviewed so that Parliament can be left alone to concentrate on their legislative powers and duties devoid of Executive interference and manipulation while the Executive is equally left to pick and appoint whoever it deems competent for public office. I guess this will give true meaning to the multi-party democratic concept of separation of Powers.
2. APPOINTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL:
I propose that the Ministry of Justice is scrapped as it renders the Ombudsman redundant. CHRAJ must be empowered to deal entirely with issues of enforcing and ensuring justice for all citizens under the constitution. The Attorney General must be appointed by the President upon recommendation from the Judicial Counsel with a guaranteed tenure of office commensurate with terms and conditions of service of the Chief Justice, the NCCE Boss and the Commissioner of CHRAJ. This will grant the Attorney General enough freedom to prosecute those who fall foul of the law irrespective of the political head of state.
I propose this due to a rather dangerous trend of the state discontinuing cases initiated, prosecuted but left unfinished only for the sitting Attorney General to discontinue such high profiled corruption cases on the eve of handing over power to a new government because the Attorney General will automatically lose his office and has no prosecutorial powers anymore to finish what he started. It is huge financial loss to the state as many resources are committed into the investigations and prosecution of those cases. Again, it eradicates the temptation where an outgoing Attorney General could deliberately refuse discontinuing these cases and saddle the new Attorney General with the uncompleted case to generally prosecute members of his own government because he/she has no choice than to do so. It will create public discontent for the new Attorney General and even has the tendency to disturb the peace.
3. SCARPPING OF THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENTS’ SHARE OF THE DISTRCIT ASSEMBLY COMMON FUND:
I propose this is scrapped on grounds that the Member of Parliament’s duties does not extend to undertaking development projects in their constituencies. Once the proposals in paragraph one are implemented, then the MPs will have no other business than sitting in the august house to deliver on their law-making duties and thus their share of the Common Fund will be totally needless. The District Assemblies must be given the Common Funds in full for the DCE and the Local Assembly to manage and to be accountable for. This will speed up development projects in the various districts and equally reduce tensions and “cold wars” between the DCEs and their respective Members of Parliament especially in areas where they both belong to different political parties. One will not use the Funds and its allocation and disbursement as a political tool against the other.
4. PROCUREMENT LAW MUST BE REMOVED: This would open up small and local companies to bid for government contracts and projects.
5. STATE SPONSORSHIP OF POLITICAL PARTIES:
I propose that the constitution must be reviewed to establish principles that would deepen multi-party democracy by providing a legal framework for the state sponsorship of political parties. The Political parties Act bars parties from raising funds outside the jurisdiction and thus cripples many of the parties who have interested sponsors who would want to support their cause especially those who belong to international political ideological organisations who would want to count on member groups to provide technical , material and financial support. The laws as it is now is discriminatory because the law is over bearing on the financial support while remaining silent on technical and other non-financial supports that are still quantified as “resources”.
The state must sponsor parties along the following lines:
• Remuneration for at least Constituency, Regional and National Executive members on salaries or allowances commensurate with their qualifications just like what pertains in the civil servant. This over will help draw very qualified and willing persons with the capacity, qualification and intellect to work full time for these parties without losing anything. I believe this would breed a new group of qualified and well informed technocrats into political parties who will serve with their skills and knowledge, rather than just electing any unemployed person and non-employable person (as regards level of education) into political parties. It would help reduce the wanton lack of resources that these parties suffer especially while in opposition. It has affected many minority parties especially as regards their performance in general elections since 1992. We must not sit to watch these smaller parties die out while we claim to promote a Multi-party democratic culture.
• CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING WORKSHOPS: This is already in the system but with state sponsorship, as in the earlier point, it becomes mandatory for all parties to participate in these programmes and those who do not attend, are sanctioned by the law just like absenteeism and laziness is dealt with in the civil service. I believe this will make the parties engage more in dialogue among others and thus help reduce the clashes and tensions that characterise these programmes as it stands now. Parties cannot boycott these programmes because it becomes unlawful to do so.
• The sponsorship must also be in the provision of equal time and equal coverage by the state owned media (print and electronic) instead of the parties paying huge monies just to preach their message that is intended to benefit Ghana and not just themselves. The culture of the parties with huge monies buying all airtime in the heat of the campaign thus blotting out the less resourced ones will be eliminated. The voter becomes more informed and can have the luxury of deciding who will make a better government in order to promote our democratic culture. This will reduce the huge media bills of many parties especially the few minority parties.
• The criteria for qualification for state sponsorship must be determined by Parliament.
6. CRIMINALIZING OR DECRIMINALIZING VERBAL ABUSE ON THE PRESIDENT AND EX PRESIDENTS:
I propose that the aspect of the repealed Criminal Libel Law that criminalised the insult of the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and Head of State of the Republic of Ghana must be re visited. The Law as it stands now opens the President up for unsavoury verbal attacks and insults as we have witnessed in the past few months, on the persona of the President in the name of criticisms. The same Law maintains that it is an offence to insult a chief. I question the basis of this law as it appears very discriminatory.
The chief draws his authority from his subjects, who are mostly clan or tribesmen, but the president draws his authority both legally and legitimately from the people of Ghana who voted him for a limited mandate set out in the Constitution of Ghana. If therefore it is an offense to insult a chief, how can it be permitted under this same law to insult the President? The review must extend not only to the sitting President but our ex-presidents as Ghana will begin to count a number of ex-presidents in the next 30 years.
I believe this review will sanitize the use of foul language and insult foremost by the sitting presidents against their predecessors and the vice versa. This will again teach a positive moral lesson to the youth of Ghana that we can practise multi-party without resorting to unwarranted physical and verbal attacks on dissenting political opinions.
I hope my proposals would be considered.
Thank You.
Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
elolo.elolo@gmail.com
P.O Box MS 422
New Achimota
Accra
June 9, 2010
The Executive Secretary
Constitutional review Committee
Republic of Ghana
Accra
Dear Sir,
PROPOSALS FOR THE CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE:
I wish to make the following proposals for your consideration as a citizen of Ghana to the Constitutional Review Process;
1. APPOINTMENT OF MINISTERS FROM PARLIAMENT:
I propose this provision is reviewed so that Parliament can be left alone to concentrate on their legislative powers and duties devoid of Executive interference and manipulation while the Executive is equally left to pick and appoint whoever it deems competent for public office. I guess this will give true meaning to the multi-party democratic concept of separation of Powers.
2. APPOINTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL:
I propose that the Ministry of Justice is scrapped as it renders the Ombudsman redundant. CHRAJ must be empowered to deal entirely with issues of enforcing and ensuring justice for all citizens under the constitution. The Attorney General must be appointed by the President upon recommendation from the Judicial Counsel with a guaranteed tenure of office commensurate with terms and conditions of service of the Chief Justice, the NCCE Boss and the Commissioner of CHRAJ. This will grant the Attorney General enough freedom to prosecute those who fall foul of the law irrespective of the political head of state.
I propose this due to a rather dangerous trend of the state discontinuing cases initiated, prosecuted but left unfinished only for the sitting Attorney General to discontinue such high profiled corruption cases on the eve of handing over power to a new government because the Attorney General will automatically lose his office and has no prosecutorial powers anymore to finish what he started. It is huge financial loss to the state as many resources are committed into the investigations and prosecution of those cases. Again, it eradicates the temptation where an outgoing Attorney General could deliberately refuse discontinuing these cases and saddle the new Attorney General with the uncompleted case to generally prosecute members of his own government because he/she has no choice than to do so. It will create public discontent for the new Attorney General and even has the tendency to disturb the peace.
3. SCARPPING OF THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENTS’ SHARE OF THE DISTRCIT ASSEMBLY COMMON FUND:
I propose this is scrapped on grounds that the Member of Parliament’s duties does not extend to undertaking development projects in their constituencies. Once the proposals in paragraph one are implemented, then the MPs will have no other business than sitting in the august house to deliver on their law-making duties and thus their share of the Common Fund will be totally needless. The District Assemblies must be given the Common Funds in full for the DCE and the Local Assembly to manage and to be accountable for. This will speed up development projects in the various districts and equally reduce tensions and “cold wars” between the DCEs and their respective Members of Parliament especially in areas where they both belong to different political parties. One will not use the Funds and its allocation and disbursement as a political tool against the other.
4. PROCUREMENT LAW MUST BE REMOVED: This would open up small and local companies to bid for government contracts and projects.
5. STATE SPONSORSHIP OF POLITICAL PARTIES:
I propose that the constitution must be reviewed to establish principles that would deepen multi-party democracy by providing a legal framework for the state sponsorship of political parties. The Political parties Act bars parties from raising funds outside the jurisdiction and thus cripples many of the parties who have interested sponsors who would want to support their cause especially those who belong to international political ideological organisations who would want to count on member groups to provide technical , material and financial support. The laws as it is now is discriminatory because the law is over bearing on the financial support while remaining silent on technical and other non-financial supports that are still quantified as “resources”.
The state must sponsor parties along the following lines:
• Remuneration for at least Constituency, Regional and National Executive members on salaries or allowances commensurate with their qualifications just like what pertains in the civil servant. This over will help draw very qualified and willing persons with the capacity, qualification and intellect to work full time for these parties without losing anything. I believe this would breed a new group of qualified and well informed technocrats into political parties who will serve with their skills and knowledge, rather than just electing any unemployed person and non-employable person (as regards level of education) into political parties. It would help reduce the wanton lack of resources that these parties suffer especially while in opposition. It has affected many minority parties especially as regards their performance in general elections since 1992. We must not sit to watch these smaller parties die out while we claim to promote a Multi-party democratic culture.
• CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING WORKSHOPS: This is already in the system but with state sponsorship, as in the earlier point, it becomes mandatory for all parties to participate in these programmes and those who do not attend, are sanctioned by the law just like absenteeism and laziness is dealt with in the civil service. I believe this will make the parties engage more in dialogue among others and thus help reduce the clashes and tensions that characterise these programmes as it stands now. Parties cannot boycott these programmes because it becomes unlawful to do so.
• The sponsorship must also be in the provision of equal time and equal coverage by the state owned media (print and electronic) instead of the parties paying huge monies just to preach their message that is intended to benefit Ghana and not just themselves. The culture of the parties with huge monies buying all airtime in the heat of the campaign thus blotting out the less resourced ones will be eliminated. The voter becomes more informed and can have the luxury of deciding who will make a better government in order to promote our democratic culture. This will reduce the huge media bills of many parties especially the few minority parties.
• The criteria for qualification for state sponsorship must be determined by Parliament.
6. CRIMINALIZING OR DECRIMINALIZING VERBAL ABUSE ON THE PRESIDENT AND EX PRESIDENTS:
I propose that the aspect of the repealed Criminal Libel Law that criminalised the insult of the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces and Head of State of the Republic of Ghana must be re visited. The Law as it stands now opens the President up for unsavoury verbal attacks and insults as we have witnessed in the past few months, on the persona of the President in the name of criticisms. The same Law maintains that it is an offence to insult a chief. I question the basis of this law as it appears very discriminatory.
The chief draws his authority from his subjects, who are mostly clan or tribesmen, but the president draws his authority both legally and legitimately from the people of Ghana who voted him for a limited mandate set out in the Constitution of Ghana. If therefore it is an offense to insult a chief, how can it be permitted under this same law to insult the President? The review must extend not only to the sitting President but our ex-presidents as Ghana will begin to count a number of ex-presidents in the next 30 years.
I believe this review will sanitize the use of foul language and insult foremost by the sitting presidents against their predecessors and the vice versa. This will again teach a positive moral lesson to the youth of Ghana that we can practise multi-party without resorting to unwarranted physical and verbal attacks on dissenting political opinions.
I hope my proposals would be considered.
Thank You.
Felix Mawulolo Amegashie
elolo.elolo@gmail.com
Saturday, June 5, 2010
DYING MOTHERS AND THE KORLE BU TEACHING HOSPITAL’S LAXITY
News broke out, again, of the death of an expectant mother who had to do the unthinkable in her precarious state of climbing 6 flights of concrete stairs to the maternity ward of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. She reportedly died minutes upon making it up the final row of stairs to that ward.
These sorts of deaths, as inexcusable as they might be, must not be allowed to continue especially at this point in the nation’s history when our colonial masters, the Queen and her Crown government, support free maternity care delivery throughout the country with millions of their tax payers’ money.
What level of irresponsibility could this be for the hospital administrators, not only in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, but all other teaching hospitals and polyclinics benefiting or not from this facility, to put expectant mothers through the wobbly journey of climbing concrete stairs on these high rising and old blocks in our hospitals?
What makes the situation even more dangerous is the rampant breakdown of lifts (escalators) in the Korle Bu teaching hospital thus forcing doctors, fathers, mothers and husbands to carry pregnant and expectant mothers of their backs and shoulders in order to transport them up the maternity ward on these endless staircases. Whoever might have advised, designed, positioned and constructed the maternity ward as high as on the sixth (6th) floor of this colonial building would best pass for an idiot, knowing too well the purpose of the ward, No wonder, maternal mortality in the hospital are so high.
A nursing mother who gave birth to a premature baby after hours of caesarean surgery broke down in tears while narrating her ordeal of ascending and descending these terrifying flights of staircases to and from the ground and the sixth floor just to breastfeed her premature infant. Her tears did not only send shudders down my spine but also provoked outrage in many listeners, at hospital management all over the country, if nothing could have been done over the past fifteen years to either redesign, renovate and relocate the maternity blocks from the high rising storey buildings to ground floors and other buildings built and furnished with state-of-the art facilities.
I doubt if any father who has witnessed the struggles, tears and agony of his loving wife at Korle Bu in the quest to birth out their fruit of love, would consider impregnating the wife again after this terrifying scenario if the wife survives this torture.
I wonder why human rights activists and the women’s’ rights activists organizations have turned a blind eye and a death ear to the piercing cries of their contemporaries. While it is common for these interest groups to go digging and make unguarded statements in areas where their interest does not lie, especially in politics and governance, they have totally ignored their call to defend the rights of their own genders and citizens in the regard.
Medically, what is more life threatening than a patient who had just undergone any form of surgery to engage herself in a vigorous activity such as running up and down a flight of concrete stairs three times in a day. This situation is just the tip of the iceberg of the bigger picture of family relations, husbands, parents, nurses and doctors running helter-skelter in search of water, lanterns, candles and torchlight to perform one task or the other in their frustrations to save helpless lives?
As regards the broken down lifts in the maternity block, the Acting PRO of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Mr. Kojo Opoku Manu, blamed the situation on the rampant power outages that have taken over the nation by surprise (after almost ten months of uninterrupted electricity supply).
According to a news report on an Accra Based radio station, Mr Opoku Manu insisted that though the hospital had backup generators, the “discotheque style” power interruption by the electricity company of Ghana has resulted in the collapse of the lifts. Hours after granting this interview, it was confirmed that the lifts in question have been fixed.
This report brings two issues to the fore. The first being whether it had to take the tears of an expectant mother who had just undergone caesarean surgery and the radio station to correct this dangerous and avoidable situation. Ghanaians will recollect that soon after Dr. George Sipa Yankey, the resigned Health Minister , assumed office, he took a tour to all government health facilities in the country to ascertain issues on the ground as they are experienced by the people of Ghana. He was shocked, to see for himself, that the lift in the maternity ward had broken down for weeks and no one was doing anything about it. He immediately gave the hospital a two (2) week ultimatum to fix the lift and also pay arrears of some category of health workers in the hospital who earlier threatened a strike action. The lift was immediately fixed until it broke down again.
The second issue it invokes is the management style of our state institutions and hospitals. The Acting PRO of Korle Bu Hospital again intimated that government has approved funds for the purchase of new lifts for the replacement of all existing ones on the block. He further explained that the lifts are to be brought in from foreign lands and that it takes time for the airlifting of the equipment and the installation. A question worth asking is that at what point was the requests made and at what point was the funds approved and again, what time table is the hospital administrators working with for the permanent solution to the problem and if the ward is going to be left where it is currently located.
I am not sure that the hospital administrators are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude to finding quick solution to this and the acute water crises that has rocked the hospital over the past three (3) weeks especially on the back of reports from the Mamobi Polyclinic that, but for Ms Hannah Bissiw’s efforts from the Ministry of Water Resources, the Polytechnic would still not have tasted clean pipe borne water after fifteen (15) years of interruption. This looks scary and I hope the administrators of the Country’s Teaching Hospitals would adopted a more proactive and caring attitude to their work in consonance with the President’s mantra of “ I care for you” , upon which he successfully campaigned and appointed some of them to represent his interest in these public institutions.
If the decision were mine to take, I would rather the maternity ward was relocated somewhere on the ground floor or the first (1st) floor in the inevitable circumstance as part of long term measures to address this problem.
Additionally, a complaints’ and queries outfit must be opened under the public relations outfit to better address the problem of information flow and information management in the hospital. It might be possible that hospital administrators only hear of these challenges after the occurrence of a fatal accident. In the absence of this , the status quo remains unchanged as no one seem to care what happens to who and who cares about the other.
The establishment of this unit will be a convergent point for complaints, queries, reports and suggestions from patients and doctors, nurses and workers as well in the dissemination of information to the public and patients.
The Electricity Company of Ghana, at whom all fingers seem to be pointing, must clean their chambers in order to render quality service to the hospital and the public. I am sure very little has changed in the quality of service that ECG provides the public over the past 8 years though tariffs have increased more than 200 percent (2007).
At least adequate notice must be served the hospital administrators as and when their lines are scheduled for any temporary interruption for the hospital to be adequately aware and prepared to ensure free flow of service delivery especially in emergency situations.
The hospital should embark on a project of installing adequate water reservoirs on all blocks as soon as possible. These water reservoirs are to be monitored by the Estate Department of the hospital. The reservoirs must be stocked daily whether water flows or not so that the hospital will never be found wanting even if water supply is interrupted without notice for at least three days until the supply is restored.
The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is the one of the finest, if not the finest, hospitals in the country and we cannot afford to stand aloof to watch the hospital collapse due to causes that could be avoided if management were more proactive in dealing with the daily challenges that mitigates the smooth running of the hospital.
I am not sure that it would be a pleasant sight for one to rush a loved one to the Korle Bu Hospital under life threatening circumstances, to be told rudely in the face by a hospital staff that due to the absence of water, electricity of a lift, there was nothing they could do about you and your loved one’s helpless situation. It could be very paranoiac and the earlier we add our voices to this cause, the better for our future as a nation.
These sorts of deaths, as inexcusable as they might be, must not be allowed to continue especially at this point in the nation’s history when our colonial masters, the Queen and her Crown government, support free maternity care delivery throughout the country with millions of their tax payers’ money.
What level of irresponsibility could this be for the hospital administrators, not only in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, but all other teaching hospitals and polyclinics benefiting or not from this facility, to put expectant mothers through the wobbly journey of climbing concrete stairs on these high rising and old blocks in our hospitals?
What makes the situation even more dangerous is the rampant breakdown of lifts (escalators) in the Korle Bu teaching hospital thus forcing doctors, fathers, mothers and husbands to carry pregnant and expectant mothers of their backs and shoulders in order to transport them up the maternity ward on these endless staircases. Whoever might have advised, designed, positioned and constructed the maternity ward as high as on the sixth (6th) floor of this colonial building would best pass for an idiot, knowing too well the purpose of the ward, No wonder, maternal mortality in the hospital are so high.
A nursing mother who gave birth to a premature baby after hours of caesarean surgery broke down in tears while narrating her ordeal of ascending and descending these terrifying flights of staircases to and from the ground and the sixth floor just to breastfeed her premature infant. Her tears did not only send shudders down my spine but also provoked outrage in many listeners, at hospital management all over the country, if nothing could have been done over the past fifteen years to either redesign, renovate and relocate the maternity blocks from the high rising storey buildings to ground floors and other buildings built and furnished with state-of-the art facilities.
I doubt if any father who has witnessed the struggles, tears and agony of his loving wife at Korle Bu in the quest to birth out their fruit of love, would consider impregnating the wife again after this terrifying scenario if the wife survives this torture.
I wonder why human rights activists and the women’s’ rights activists organizations have turned a blind eye and a death ear to the piercing cries of their contemporaries. While it is common for these interest groups to go digging and make unguarded statements in areas where their interest does not lie, especially in politics and governance, they have totally ignored their call to defend the rights of their own genders and citizens in the regard.
Medically, what is more life threatening than a patient who had just undergone any form of surgery to engage herself in a vigorous activity such as running up and down a flight of concrete stairs three times in a day. This situation is just the tip of the iceberg of the bigger picture of family relations, husbands, parents, nurses and doctors running helter-skelter in search of water, lanterns, candles and torchlight to perform one task or the other in their frustrations to save helpless lives?
As regards the broken down lifts in the maternity block, the Acting PRO of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Mr. Kojo Opoku Manu, blamed the situation on the rampant power outages that have taken over the nation by surprise (after almost ten months of uninterrupted electricity supply).
According to a news report on an Accra Based radio station, Mr Opoku Manu insisted that though the hospital had backup generators, the “discotheque style” power interruption by the electricity company of Ghana has resulted in the collapse of the lifts. Hours after granting this interview, it was confirmed that the lifts in question have been fixed.
This report brings two issues to the fore. The first being whether it had to take the tears of an expectant mother who had just undergone caesarean surgery and the radio station to correct this dangerous and avoidable situation. Ghanaians will recollect that soon after Dr. George Sipa Yankey, the resigned Health Minister , assumed office, he took a tour to all government health facilities in the country to ascertain issues on the ground as they are experienced by the people of Ghana. He was shocked, to see for himself, that the lift in the maternity ward had broken down for weeks and no one was doing anything about it. He immediately gave the hospital a two (2) week ultimatum to fix the lift and also pay arrears of some category of health workers in the hospital who earlier threatened a strike action. The lift was immediately fixed until it broke down again.
The second issue it invokes is the management style of our state institutions and hospitals. The Acting PRO of Korle Bu Hospital again intimated that government has approved funds for the purchase of new lifts for the replacement of all existing ones on the block. He further explained that the lifts are to be brought in from foreign lands and that it takes time for the airlifting of the equipment and the installation. A question worth asking is that at what point was the requests made and at what point was the funds approved and again, what time table is the hospital administrators working with for the permanent solution to the problem and if the ward is going to be left where it is currently located.
I am not sure that the hospital administrators are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude to finding quick solution to this and the acute water crises that has rocked the hospital over the past three (3) weeks especially on the back of reports from the Mamobi Polyclinic that, but for Ms Hannah Bissiw’s efforts from the Ministry of Water Resources, the Polytechnic would still not have tasted clean pipe borne water after fifteen (15) years of interruption. This looks scary and I hope the administrators of the Country’s Teaching Hospitals would adopted a more proactive and caring attitude to their work in consonance with the President’s mantra of “ I care for you” , upon which he successfully campaigned and appointed some of them to represent his interest in these public institutions.
If the decision were mine to take, I would rather the maternity ward was relocated somewhere on the ground floor or the first (1st) floor in the inevitable circumstance as part of long term measures to address this problem.
Additionally, a complaints’ and queries outfit must be opened under the public relations outfit to better address the problem of information flow and information management in the hospital. It might be possible that hospital administrators only hear of these challenges after the occurrence of a fatal accident. In the absence of this , the status quo remains unchanged as no one seem to care what happens to who and who cares about the other.
The establishment of this unit will be a convergent point for complaints, queries, reports and suggestions from patients and doctors, nurses and workers as well in the dissemination of information to the public and patients.
The Electricity Company of Ghana, at whom all fingers seem to be pointing, must clean their chambers in order to render quality service to the hospital and the public. I am sure very little has changed in the quality of service that ECG provides the public over the past 8 years though tariffs have increased more than 200 percent (2007).
At least adequate notice must be served the hospital administrators as and when their lines are scheduled for any temporary interruption for the hospital to be adequately aware and prepared to ensure free flow of service delivery especially in emergency situations.
The hospital should embark on a project of installing adequate water reservoirs on all blocks as soon as possible. These water reservoirs are to be monitored by the Estate Department of the hospital. The reservoirs must be stocked daily whether water flows or not so that the hospital will never be found wanting even if water supply is interrupted without notice for at least three days until the supply is restored.
The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is the one of the finest, if not the finest, hospitals in the country and we cannot afford to stand aloof to watch the hospital collapse due to causes that could be avoided if management were more proactive in dealing with the daily challenges that mitigates the smooth running of the hospital.
I am not sure that it would be a pleasant sight for one to rush a loved one to the Korle Bu Hospital under life threatening circumstances, to be told rudely in the face by a hospital staff that due to the absence of water, electricity of a lift, there was nothing they could do about you and your loved one’s helpless situation. It could be very paranoiac and the earlier we add our voices to this cause, the better for our future as a nation.
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