We Cannot Build A Viable Nation While We Are Serial Invitors To Disaster

When I read that a young lady doctor had lost her life after being swept away in her car by the floods that occurred in Accra in mid-June 2018, I felt completely shattered.

If you count the two years one does in Sixth Form, getting to grips with difficult subjects like chemistry, biology, physics and general science, then a doctor's training – including the one-year as a “houseman” after qualification -- lasts for nearly a decade.

To go through all that, and then, to lose one's life in such a”silly” way, when one has managed to take up an appointment as a full GP, is beyond belief. Such national carelessness exacts a price. And yes, by this unnecessary death, Ghana has paid dearly through its inability to ensure a safe environment in which its citizens can live and work.

In all probability, we wouldn't even be talking about this matter were it not for the fact that we feel threatened personally when we hear that a doctor had died, knowing fully well, as we do, that we may have become the poorer in health terms, having lost one of the doctors on the roll of those who might have been called upon, one fateful day, to save our own lives.

I see the tragedy of such a useful human being dying just because she was driving somewhere during or after a heavy rainfall, as a wastage of life that's beyond comprehension. For the danger that floods pose to our capital city is not unknown. Have we forgotten the dramatic disaster at the petrol station that caught fire during a flood?

Come to that, have we forgotten how our horrendous road system robbed us of three very experienced urologists in August 2005? Here is what I wrote about that accident:

https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/2018/February-17th/making-the-presidents-dictum-on-road-safety-work.php

“In August 2005, three urologists of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra died in a motor accident. The deceased were Emeritus Prof J.K.M. Quartey, Dr. Isaac Kofi Bentsil and Dr Benjamin Kofi Osei Wiafe. The HORRIFIC accident happened on the Bunso-Apedwa road.

[Then] President J A Kufuor spoke for everyone when he said: “I am so shocked by the fact that we have lost three of our specialists. It is an irreparable loss to the nation”. “Irreparable indeed – for good urologists are among the rarest specialists in the medical field.”

Many people hoped that after the words of the then President, the authorities would rally round to make that stretch of road safe. They did not. One of our political parties was moved to issue a statement on the accident:

QUOTE:
ACCRA, Aug. 30, 2005 GNA - The People's National Convention (PNC) ... has expressed shock at the death of three Urologists of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, saying it was more tragic [as] the doctor-patient ratio [in Ghana] was [so] low. [The party] said it was devastating to watch these doctors, who had denied themselves the luxury of seeking greener pastures and retirement, to die while executing services to liberate their kin throughout the length and breadth of the country. The PNC appealed to the government to institute the relevant policies of education that would ensure that more doctors were produced to stem the tide of a few doctors traversing the country to attend to patients....

Professor J.M.K. Quartey, Dr Isaac Bentsil and Dr Benjamin Osei-Wiafe died in the accident … on the Bunso-Apedwa stretch of the Accra-Kumasi road. The three were part of a medical team returning from an outreach programme at the Sunyani General Hospital. UNQUOTE

Hmmmm!
But back to Accra: the entire city environmental system is crying out for revamping. There was a time – believe it or not – when the City Engineer's Department in Accra was one of the most respected institutions in Ghana. Its personnel displayed such true professionalism that even politicians left them strictly alone to formulate and enforce their edicts because everyone respected their expertise. Above all, the Central Government recognised the contribution their work in Ghana's fastest-growing urban area made to the nationalrevenue and did not mulct toot much of the income the city generated, for its own purposes.

But as the city prospered, its needs were increasingly ignored – in an inverse proportion to its contribution to national revenue. Next, the politicians began to “privatise” city projects, to make it easier to award contracts and obtain a commission on them. Who has ever seen a recent income and expenditure account for the Accra municipality? Why are these accounts not presented to the National Parliament annually? Come to think of it, why is there so little media coverage of the affairs of a municipality that is is growing by such leaps and bounds?

I think there are certain functions that must be taken away from the council, as it exists today, and handed over to the central government. Floodprevention and the allied function of creating safepavements for pedestrians – throughout the city – should be the number one priority.

Second must be adequatestreet-lighting. Driving along unlit streets that are flanked by large gutters, atnight, is dangerous to drivers (because the frequent changes in light conditions confuse the eye). And, of course it is enormously terrifying to pedestrians, who can be blinded by the undimmed lights of oncoming traffic (at the same time as they are dodging traffic coming from behind, which is forced to share with pedestrians, what little of the road is left to them by carelessly -- or even double-parked vehicles!)

Narrow roads; large open gutters; badly-lit streets: is there any combination of life-threatening abominations that can blight the path of the Ghanaian city-walker more than that?

Oh, yes! There is! I haven't yet mentioned the menace of the street hawker and the road-blocking kiosk, have I?

I wish that were the end of the litany of woes that anyone forced to walk in Accra has to endure. Many of the neem and mango trees that used to serve as a welcome shade for walkers, in our hot sunshine, have been brutally hacked down. The reason? The council won't admit it, but I think it's to enable developers to erect tall office-buildings and flats!

The council once had a policy of grooming these trees because they made the city look green and lovely. But the same council has now chopped down the trees! Most probably after developers have bribed council officials. No consultations of course – you just see that the trees are down!

Obviously, continuity means little to the new councillors and council officials. I don't think they are aware that there are policy documents in their offices, that were laboriously researched and adopted by their predecessors, who understood what it meant to be entrusted with the delicate task of building a habitable city in the modern world.

Our current Government must adopt policies that can visiblymake a difference to life in our capita city, I say. Enough noise has been made. Nowmust come ACTION! ….ACTION!!.... ACTION!!!