What At All Have We Done?

THE pictures that have gone viral on the Internet since 9 June 2016, when the heavens opened for a few hours and the people of Accra were once again exposed to the danger of drowning in filthy torrents of water, are among the most stomach-churning I have ever set eyes on.

It's not what the eyes see so much as what the brain makes of it.

For the brain cannot help but raise these questions:

Suppose the rain had lasted longer?
Did such terrible flooding not also happen last year?

Were we not told then that “steps” and/or “measures” were being taken to ensure that floods would not threaten life and property in Accra any longer?

Were these promises not piously repeated only a few days ago – on the anniversary of last year's deadly floods?

And then, the final question: Is anybody at all in charge – overall – of public safety in this over-populated city of Accra?

Is anybody in charge of planning how to safeguard life and property against the ravages of nature, in this teeming city that provides so much revenue for the Government? What has happened to the august “City Engineer's Office”, that used to run the technical affairs of the city quite efficiently in years gone by?

Now, if there are people still in charge of such things as flood prevention and yet these disasters keep happening, then what does it say about their suitability for the jobs they hold?

If their suitability for their jobs is in question, then what does it say about the person or persons who appointed them?

It is just too much! What at all have we done to deserve such a woeful performance from the authorities which voluntarily sought election to run our affairs?

Ghana has been independent for nearly sixty years. During that time, we have built and operated the vastly complex Akosombo Dam, for example. In the course of building that particular Dam, we created a “Volta Lake” which covers a surface area of 8,515 square kilometres. (That is about 8% of Ghana's total land area!) This led to the displacement of 78,000 inhabitants.

Yet pre-planned rescue operations made it possible for all these people to be moved safely to new habitations. Houses were built for them long before the flooding began – together with amenities like markets and schools. Even wild animals were rescued from the rising waters and taken to safety.

All these things were done under a Government composed of Ghanaians like those who are currently “running” this country. The Ministers and officials then in charge were sincere – and knowledgeable – enough to give important contracts only to companies which – demonstrably – possessed the requisite expertise and experience to carry out the work.

These Ghanaians almost always looked for companies that had successfully carried out similar ventures elsewhere. We built the Accra-Tema Refinery through this process. Ghana Airways was started for us by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). The Back Star Line had a relationship with an Israeli national shipping company. And so on and so forth.

Many of these companies – though unfortunately, not all – were made to compete against each other through transparent bidsmade to carry out the work.

Why is it, then, that a good sixty years later, we flounder when we encounter ordinary floods caused by rainfall? Why can we no longer plan to relieve our capital city of filth and the concomitant blocking of natural waterways that the filth causes, exposing the city to floods?

We are not talking rocket science here, mind you! Global warming and the El Nino phenomenon have combined –visibly – to bring heavy flooding to many countries in the world, including Bangladesh, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. In all these places, engineers have been hard at work, instituting technical measures to prevent the floods from over-running those countries and making them uninhabitable. In the Netherlands, the Government has been so clever that it has got its engineers to institute preventive– as against curative – measures deal with the possibility of disastrous flooding.

There must be people in our Government and our public services, too, who are aware of these developments in foreign countries and have probably been trained to acquire the skills necessary to put effective measures in place to keep our cities safe. Why do our people then seem incapable of replicating here, what others have done elsewhere that has saved their countries from flooding?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. For I am unable to believe that a Ghana “born and bred” Minister or official will put personal enrichment above making Ghana safe for all his or her fellow citizens.

Yet that is what a lot of Ghanaians now believe.
These people set the scene as follows: “Members of the Government or Party in power establish companies abroad, or team up with existing overseas companies, and then award contracts to them. Sometimes, these contracts are not made open to competitive bidding, but are awarded on a “single-source” basis, which means that someone introduces a company and says : “Hey, that company is very good; it carried out such and such a project in Country F. Moreover, the company will lend us the money to do it – Wink! Wink!!”

And Ghana is saddled with a huge debt for work done that is not up to the standard required, while the “introducer” of the companies and other “middlemen” become vastly rich overnight, due to commissions paid to them in tax havens abroad.

What is undeniable is that the “sweeteners” that go with contract-awards are not new, especially in developing countries like our own, and when we find things going persistently wrong without any practicable steps being taken to put them right, we are within our rights to harbour suspicions that the country's true interests have been ignored, or – sold for a song.

There is only one way to refute such suspicions, namely – get the job done, and done very well.

Accra city needs a flood prevention scheme urgently. It needed the work done yesterday.

The work has NOT been done. Yet we have a national Government which should be concerned about the problem, because Accra is the seat of that government and the headquarters of many of the companies which pay taxes to provide the Government with its revenue.

At the same time, Accra also has a municipal government that also levies taxes on market stall-holders and other traders in the city.

These two organisations should get their act together and solve the problem.

The central Government alone cannot do it. And as for the municipal government, it cannot, by itself, even begin to tackle it (as becomes evident to all eyes whenever heavy rains occur.)

We need efficient, co-ordinated ACTION to save our capital NOW!

The time for excuses is over.