Emena noise: Chief refuses resident audience, EPA no show

An expatriate resident at Emena near the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has vowed go do all what is necessary to fight the extreme noise pollution in the area.

Peter Cunningham made contact with rawgist.com over an information centre operating at high decibels near his residence at Emena. He tells rawgist.com all efforts to reason with operators of the information centre to get them to to reduce the noise have failed.

Even the chief of the area has refused to grant him audience and has asked him to leave with his family if he cannot tolerate the noise.

Rawgist.com spoke to several residents in the area who are helpless due to fear. They believe the chief has a business interest in the information centre and is hence protecting it.

There is a hospital as well as a school near the information centre which operates at noise levels estimated to be above eighty decibels. Several students of the KNUST are also resident at Emena.

Many of them are unhappy with the noisy broadcasts from the information centre which affects their sleep and studies.

The information centre begins its broadcasts around 5am daily with its core activities including the sale of herbal preparations, preaching and re-transmission of football commentary from radio stations.

Peter Cunningham believes many of the residents have been cowered into submission and are suffering in silence. He tells rawgist.com the noise is killing the future of Ghana since many of the children will have their brains shrinking due to the constant noise.

Research cited by rawgist.com indicates continuous exposure to noise has several health effects including heart conditions, indigestion, miscarriages, hearing impairment, hypertension, changes in the immune system, birth defects among several other psychological conditions.

Peter Cunningham tells rawgist.com the Environmental Protection Agency has also failed to help him and instead told him lies when he visited their office in Kumasi to make a complaint. “The officer who spoke to me gave me a fake name and promised to come check things out, but he never came and when I called the office, they told me there is no worker there bearing that name”. “They are not doing their jobs. They are just having fun in the office”.

He says a petition he sent to the Kumasi Police did not yield the expected results.

Peter, who quoted several texts from the Ghanaian constitution is appalled by the deliberate disregard for the law and a lack of enforcement by those paid by the tax payer to protect them. He tells rawgist.com he will send petitions up to the Presidency if that's what it takes to enforce the law.