Living It

At lunch table, one day this week, Senior, five years my senior asked me whether I am an idealist. Long time before that, he had remarked about my being a pessimist. If you would remember, I had written about congress pessimists.  Truth is, I am darn pessimistic when it comes to thinking this motherland would ever get anything good from congress running our government and economy.

Idealist I am. By introspection, I have always realised that. I realise it is not my fault that I am an idealist. Both my parents always talked about doing good. I have attended some of the best educational institutions around. I have read, seen and lived good things; systems working and public service being delivered efficiently. The conclusion must be that nothing but the best ought to be (Kwegyir Aggrey). I am waiting to tell my one day experience of many parts.

So I set off after the electricity metre I requested for a while back but was not showing up. The last time I had been there, the lady dismissed me with there is a queue. I requested for a phone number to check on my queue status. She flatly refused to give me any. So when she repeated the queue thing this time around, I wasn't ready to leave just like that.  She seemed to be in some neck pain. She and her co-worker were into deep conversation about the doctor refusing days off on excuse duty.

In some way, I was sympathising with her; the Ghanaian thing of condoning mediocrity by sympathising! As both would express awe at my insistence for attention, I pressed on with my queue status being addressed. At a point, she offered me a phone number which I refused because she wouldn't give me one the last time I pleaded for it. As I sat there, I kept asking myself why.

On one occasion, the post-paid metre reader had said something intriguing. He had been struggling to gain access to the metre. I asked him why they wouldn't replace it with the prepaid. His answer was cryptic. 'Do you want me to lose my metre reading job?' I didn't know what to say. This was a representative of a company which has spent considerable amount of money preaching to the convinced and unconvinced about switching to prepaid. Maybe it is indication of why it is so hard to convert from post-paid to prepaid metering.

Next call was for my national ID card. I have always wondered why some method could not be devised to validate the old one I have and that I had to start all over again. The process was supposed to be 'gyina hɔ gye' or 'pre krenkrann (on the spot delivery).'    The good man has made the machine to use, but it turns into all kinds of things including mischief and large scale inconvenience; (remember my technophobic confession last week). No card after the long process on the first day. I had enjoyed the senior citizen protocol by skipping the initial queue.

Let me say I found the staff extremely courteous and they seemed to know the job. When an applicant presented some centuries old birth certificate with five names or so and demanded the official reduces the number of names to appear on his card she rightly flatly refused. Then there was this lady who had brought a man to vouch for her claiming the man was her uncle. The official asked the man for the name of the sister, he didn't know. The smart official asked to talk to the sister/mother on phone. The lady instead called her real uncle who told the official the man was his friend. If you are old enough you would remember a woman's 'Cape Coast uncle!'

After hours and four days late, my card surfaced for the verification before it was handed to me. There had been results, although woefully not within the expected time. I had spent the greater part of a working day with ECG and NIA with part only service delivered result from NIA. It was machine trouble that was doing NIA in. The officials felt it was the erratic Internet access that was delaying their work and undermining efficiency. Remember what I have said about the man-made machine.

I arrived home with my new ID to be welcomed by electricity dum (lights gone off). For a moment I thought it was punishment from the lady I had had a tiff with at the office. I thought I should call one of the ECG big people to report being punished for requesting for a prepaid metre. I went to the whatsapp but only managed to say hi. After a while, I decided to walk to my neighbourhood gossip partner to report how I was being done in for asking for a prepaid metre.  At the corner, I saw an ECG pick-up parked. To the right was an official in overalls with the logo. When I asked him about the dum, he said that was why they were around, to ensure a 'sɔ'. Indeed, 'sɔ' happened minutes later.

As I walked back home, there was a text message prompt. I opened it and it was Ghana Water announcing the metre reader couldn't access my house to read the metre. Many times I had complained that was useless messaging. They had been hand-delivering bills, texting them and texting the. So why can't they organise advance metre reading notices when they know people have to make money to pay them?

Even with the pseudo public (PPP) things seem not so efficient. Sometime in between all these happenings, I had called the zoom people about replacement for my stolen bin. Earlier, I had called to report the theft and involved the police (who only came round). At this instance, they promised to text the number for the revenue collector to visit to organize replacement. I am still waiting for Emma, their revenue collector's number.

So in two days, electricity metre, ID card, water bill, lost waste disposal, church noise I have repeatedly reported to the assembly, the police. Senior, it isn't idealistic worrying about expecting that all the no service wouldn't happen in all these cases and that there would not be ONLY one delayed delivered service and five no results services in two days.

By Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh