To De-congest or not:

In the major cities of Ghana such as Accra and Kumasi, the issue of de-congestion is a hot issue that has caused so much controversy.

This short article is to explain why in my humble opinion that the issue of decongestion ISD NOT the solution to our overcrowded city trading areas.

In life there is the equation of cause and effect. For every effect there is a cause. Therefore the effect of our cities being so overcrowded especially the issue of trading is concerned is due to the fact there is mass unemployment in Ghana today.

In previous articles I have sought to educate the readership about how Ghana used to have full employment because of the 500 or so industries that Ghana's first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory built as part of his industrialization programme to radically transform the Ghanaian economy after independence.

However due to the interference of the nefarious IMF/World Bank in Ghana's economy post the 1966 military coup, most of those 500 industries were either sold off cheaply to foreign so-called investors or left to rot, leaving in the process tens of thousands of Ghanaians unemployed.

This therefore is the cause of the problem – the mass unemployment that has been created in Ghana and the lack of effective leadership by subsequent leaders of Ghana to find innovative solutions to address the unemployment crisis.

Not everybody can become a trader and because of a lack of real job opportunities, many people have decided to create their own opportunities in the form of the informal sector.

This unchecked and unregulated informal sector has been allowed to blossom until it has reached the stage where it has created a situation where our major cities have become congested with traders and so forth.

Therefore as a result of this congestion local authorities like the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) have embarked on de-congestion programmes that they think will solve this issue of de-congestion.

However what the powers that be have not thought about is the fundamental underlying cause of congestion and that is the huge unemployment that has plagued our major cities and quite frankly unless there is a national employment plan that seeks to radically address the issue of unemployment, congestion will be a major feature of our cities and de-congestion exercises will continue as there are NOT a long term solution to the problem of congestion and overcrowding.

   Comments0