Brightening Ketu District

There is an extent to which a focus on the problems of our local communities and of the larger continent is at once disempowering, disabling and demoralizing. Many a time, many well-meaning Africans out of genuine concern for a continent plagued by war, disease and poverty while ironically being blessed with sometimes unmatched natural resources ends up leaving us so overwhelmed as to where possible solutions if any may start from. In that seemingly helpless state, we are often left foundering as to our personal roles in taking responsibility for that much-sought after turn around.

Amidst this milieu are we reminded by one very crucial assumption of the theory of Appreciative Inquiry that one´s focus becomes one´s reality. To change and improve the realities of our communities therefore, there is a remarkable extent to which a focus on the tweaks we can ourselves introduce in little significant ways without unduly focusing on the overwhelming larger challenge can at once prove empowering, liberating and revolutionary.

To this extent and in the firm belief that everyone is a leader or exerts leadership at one point or the other, I have learnt to ask everyone to begin to focus on their own leadership and to begin to determine the ways in which one´s leadership may begin to make an impact on your community or sphere of influence.

Where the Ketu District of the Volta Region is concerned, the Tertiary Students´ Association of the District (Ketsa) must be commended for their own efforts to make an impact in their communities. Ketsa would usher in the New Year by celebrating its maiden festival at Denu under the theme "Developing Ketu-the role of the Tertiary Students and other stakeholders". Among other things, the festival would achieve the three aims of creating awareness, mobilizing resources and fostering development.

Ably supported by Honorable Albert Zugah, MP for Ketu South, the Togbuiwo and Mamawo (Chiefs and Queenmothers) from Agbozume through to Dzodze, the President of Ketsa Mr Felix Tofah would enumerate their achievements. These would include "voluntary teaching sessions within Ketu Schools, dispatching some student-nurse members of the Association to some selected Hospitals within Ketu and the organization of counseling sessions including career counseling, subject-course inter-relationship, University admission and Placement Programmes etc."

As is to be expected, challenges abound aplenty including in the words of the President, "the excessive politicization of almost all developmental programmes, lack of sponsorship from the Districts thereby overburdening the MP´s common fund and the lack of student´s representation in the District Assemblies thereby limiting their role in the District."

To my mind, the challenges as outlined by the Ketsa President raise grave questions not just about Ketu, but about the workings of some District Assemblies within the context of our decentralization drive and the extent to which professionals and interest groups involve themselves in the workings of their own local governance systems. Without necessarily singling out Ketu, what cannot sometimes be missed is the apparent disconnect between some District Assemblies and the development agenda they are set up to pursue.

There are those of us who have firmly positioned District Assemblies right in the heart of the development agenda of the people. Like a local government, it has been the expectation of many that well thought-out programmes addressing local needs would be outlined to complement national efforts. It has been the expectation that all Districts in Ghana would have their own active action plans that roll-out programmes in health, education, agriculture, industry, employment etc. What cannot be denied has been the strong resource base of many of our District Assemblies.

A cursory appreciation of the ease and consistency with which Blocks of office complexes and the often imposing residences of District Chief Executives dotted around the country all point to the fact that if we were so minded, the District Assemblies could become the revolutionary tool they are meant to be in the delivery of development to the people. So great has the potential been that arguing on the limitless possibilities of the District Assemblies, some have ascribed to them the ability to source funds independently of central government to build local train/rail network to facilitate district transport especially pertaining to the transport of goods by mainly long-suffering women on market and other days.

Stories abound of some Districts prioritizing funds for welcoming high-powered government delegations even as children study under trees while others face serious healthcare challenges starting from accessing the NHIS. As incredible as it may sound, there are many in many villages who are facing real challenges in coming up with the funds to pay premiums that would secure them access to the NHIS. It certainly is no joke encountering a jobless able-bodied man who is unable to bring his sick wife or child to the hospital. A farmer, his work is seasonal seeing how we rely on the weather and in a season of glut, a whole basket of okro grown and tendered with sweat is sold for a paltry say...GH¢4.00. So, he would rather buy a day or two´s supply of antibiotics from a chemical shop for his wife´s infection, never mind the doctor´s book-long talk about compliance, efficacy and drug resistance etc.

Increasingly, it is hoped that a serious look would be taken at the caliber of human resource capacity at the level of the Districts involving not only the District Chief Executives but the staff available to deliver development including the professionals, civil servants/technocrats. Many useful partnerships may also be built. Typically, in areas facing acute shortages of health personnel, it would be interesting to see how District Assemblies may effectively lobby the Ghana Health Service and team up with the professional associations like the Ghana Medical Association to attract doctors and other health professionals if even on a rotational basis.

It is not exactly a secret that Districts have funds for purposes of sanitation, HIV/AIDS etc. It must be asked how many Districts actually utilize the funds for this purpose? It also cannot be denied the accusation that has been leveled at some District Directors of Health Services who have cocooned themselves from the activities of the District Assemblies, thereby undervaluing their massive potential for impacting the health fortunes of the District etc. In this regard, the commendable collaboration between the Ketu District Director of Health Services Dr Andrew Ayim and the District Assembly ought to be noticed and named especially in combating the scourge of cholera. Indeed the collaboration has borne fruit with statistics showing a decline in the scale of the seasonal epidemic. The collaboration has also seen a massive roll-out of food hygiene including food inspection etc.

The National Health Insurance is yet another area where the Ketu District stands tall. In the early days of its implementation, where others floundered, Ketu soared. National officers of the scheme would on numerous occasions have reason to cite the Ketu DMHIS as a success story worth emulating as coverage expanded, access to healthcare improved and administrative bottlenecks associated with vetting of claims saw admirable collaboration between doctors and other health professionals and scheme managers.

If we all carefully examine constructive ways in which our own personal contributions may contribute to the agenda of development - improving educational standards, creating jobs, promoting health and preventing disease, creating more opportunities while improving the lives of others less-endowed, there is no doubt that our communities would become the real engine of growth that would simultaneously address the challenges of the widening inequalities in our societies. It is important at this point even as we celebrate the work of the Ketu Tertiary Student´s Association to revert to the important positive assumptions that would become the harbinger of new thinking and new actions; that everyone is a leader and to ask that you focus on your leadership and how you can make your class, church, workplace, office environment, community....etc better.

Credit: Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey[[email protected]]