What Is It At All That Causes Outrage To Ghanaians?

The Anas vs Kwasi Nyantakyi story has excited Ghanaians in a way that is difficult to comprehend.

But Kwasi Nyantakyi allegedly took a bribe of only $65,000. Yet the whole country is up in arms about it.

What about Alfred Woyome, who allegedly took about fifty times that amount from our state coffers, without doing any work for it? Was the same amount of outrage expressed over Woyome's antics? No! Indeed, he was assisted in many respects by the very institutions that should have stopped him in his tracks. He wasn't unmasked by subterfuge. But he's still a free man.

Where is the outrage as contracts upon contracts are awarded, on a sole-source basis, to cronies of politicians, without any reason whatsoever being adduced to justify the contracts being awarded outside the rules laid down for the procurement of public goods and services? Have you heard that any CEO, Ministry or Agency has been surcharged with any amount because he, she or it had by-passed normal procurement regulations, to award a contract? Ask me another!

We just ignore matters that should outrage us don't we? “God” will solve our problems for us – although He has alreadydone His part by giving us very intricate brains with which to work out solutions to those selfsame problems! Unless, by a stroke of luck, an investigative journalist, using the same brains as we have got, cleverly puts on some beads to hide his face, and tells us that he has been able to offer money to people who shouldn't be accepting bribes for the services they offer to the public.

What we don't realise is that it isn't only dramatic crimesthat do a nation down. It is the slow tick-tock-tick-tock maze of criminal negligence, inflicted on the public on a regular basis, that demoralises our populace and drives it round the bend – usually unnoticed.

I ask you – is the market woman who shouts and fights over an unnecessary petty dispute really to blame? If you paid a market toll regularly and yet you had to sit by a pile of smelly garbage every day because those who should not only provide garbage bins but collect the rubbish from them at least thrice a day have (a) not provided any bins at all or (b) have provided bins but won't collect the rubbish from them any time soon, would you be able to control your temper all the time?

What if every time that market woman needed to answer nature's call, she needed to summon enormous courage to to go and use the “non-facilities” provided by the authority that charges her regular fees in respect of her “stall”?

Of course, the market woman needs not “flip” every hour or every day. But who knows the effect the cumulative resentmentcreated in her can have on her sub-conscious mind and drive her to carry out irrational actions? Does she gradually get to a point where she begins even to hate humanity? If so, how does that hatred manifest itself in her actions?

What happens if she experiences other vexatious “troubles” in addition to the physical ones her municipal authorities dump on her? What does she find when she uses the trotro station? How does she react when she sees policemen delaying her journey to the market because they are checking all manner of papers the trotrodriver is supposed to carry – failing which they extort money from the driver, who in turn, charges her more than the prescribed fare?

The Accra-Tema municipality should be one of the richest in the country, in relation to the revenue collected from its millions of inhabitants. And by revenue I do not only mean market and lorry station tolls. No, I mean import duty;value-added-tax and other taxes levied by the Ghana Revenue Service and handed over to the Central Government.

Is the Central Government responsible for the maintenance of the majority of Accra-Tema roads? Of Accra's street lamps? Providing safe pavements and side-walks for pedestrians? If not, why not? These require major outlays of funds, and only the CentralGovernment can lay hands on such funds, through – taxes. There aresimply too many projects that are so crucial to our national life that the Central Government cannot leave them to municipal and local authorities to handle.

If the Central Government is truly in charge of some of Accra's major roads, then it is making a miserable job of it. Look at one of the most busy roads in Accra: Castle Road. From the Ridge roundabout, this road takes one to Parliament House, the Accra Conference Centre and the Accra Sports Stadium, before continuing on to the ultra-commercial Oxford Street. I am sure many Ministers and MPs use this road on a regular basis. Yet, just before one gets to the gate installed on it presumably to facilitate the closure of the road for important state occasions, there is a hellish pothole which obliges drivers to divert intothe pathsofoncomingvehicles – in order to avoid the pothole.

Every time I pass the place and notice how dangerous the pothole has rendered the road, I ask myself, “But don't Ministers and MPs and CEOs pass here every day? Do they want one of their number to die here before the road is repaired?”

It's as if someone had deliberately carried out a cruel act of vandalism in that whole area, for the road leading from the Christiansborg Castle crossroads to the Black Star Square alsohas a similar pothole – right at the Castle traffic lights! This also obliges drivers to veer dangerously off into the path of oncoming vehicles.

And lo and behold – there is another enormous gaping hole that causes an alarming amount of veering at the junction of nearby Lokko and Salem! What at all is this?

Now, these are very busy roads – many people driving from Accra to Labadi use them. Nobody from the Ministry of Transport or the Accra-Tema Municipal Council has seen it, of course, and won't see it until someone actually dies there as a result of a coalition of vehicles. Even then, the death won't be noticed, unless, peradventure, it is that of a “VIP” or some pop star (such as the poor, departed Ebony!)

Talking of Osu/Ako Adjei Park/Labadi: when oh when, will those deep gutters in that vast residential area be covered so that people can walk around their homes without fearing to have their legs forcibly amputated by the jagged concrete walls of the gutters – in the daytime, to say nothing of at night? Even when I view the gutters from inside a car, my heart sinks. What about avoiding the traffic whilst walking near the gutters?! O Lord, save thy people!

People of Ghana, please don't let the institutions that should be providing you with services have a free lunch on your taxes. DEMANDthe services you are entitled to! Writeto your Ministers. Politely. Or book appointments to see them. If they refuse to see you, write to the Presidency to complain.

Writealso to your MPs. Writeto the CEOs of state agencies. Writeto the editors of newspapers. Writeto the radio and TV stations and tell them that the politics they broadcast is too much and that you want them also to run programmes about ConsumerAffairs.

And always remember to send a copy to the Presidency. With any luck, someone might take up the issues you raise in your letter(s). That's how citizens can help to improve life for themselves and – one another.

WHATEVER YOU DO, NEVER ACCEPT MEDIOCRE SERVICES AS 'NORMAL'!