Avoidable Chaos

Local law enforcement agents have been busy since yesterday ensuring that the inconvenience suffered by motorists and others are reduced to the barest minimum as a summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Ebola holds in Accra.

Such international engagements are seldom held outside Accra, we have observed. Hearing the many complaints and grumbling from residents of the city who have had to suffer the inconveniencing repercussions of road diversions and the attendant increased fuel use when these are avoidable, prompt necessary quest for alternatives.

The Ghana Police Service has drafted many law enforcement agents to render the necessary policing of the city as a result of the traffic logjams caused by the necessary diversion of vehicular traffic as the summit lasts.

As for the lost hours being held up in traffic jams, these are hardly factored in the equation, even though it is also very crucial when the drawbacks of such holdups are being considered.

There is the need to pick lessons from other parts of the world when we are considering hosting important international conferences such as the one which is in its final day today.

Critical international conferences have been held not in capital cities, but in locations outside these places for important reasons.

Such activities offer a rare opportunity for those countries to showcase their other panoramic parts for the purpose of promoting tourism and corporate image enhancement.

It is also a means of putting money into the local economies where such activities are held. Imagine hosting important international conferences in Tamale or at Akosombo. These would afford local craftsmen and others an opportunity to sell their wares and to display local products previously unknown to the outside world.

There is no doubt about the importance of holding such conferences outside the national capital; and so it beats imagination when officialdom continues to ignore such advantages and embrace unproductive repetitions.

Our position has been informed by the many inconveniences occasioned by the diversion of vehicular traffic, among others.

Let us be innovative by altering the ways we manage our affairs. Many countries have moved forward by simply changing the status quo.

What does it profit us when we continue to hold international conferences in Accra when other places abound in the country which can host such programmes with fantastic dividends to our economy and image?

The panoramic sceneries offered by the Peduase Lodge or even Akosombo as they overlook the escarpment and the water body respectively, would make a fantastic presentation to our international guests who would definitely relish them when they are hosted at such places.

The chaotic scenes associated with Accra would be avoided when such engagements were not held in the nation's capital. Let us give this a thought without the usual political lenses.