Youth At Tema Manhean Demands Quality Living Conditions

Members of the Proud Ga Dangme Youth Group (PGDY) on Tuesday embarked on a peaceful demonstration to express their displeasure at the poor and pitiful human condition in Tema Manhean.

Members of the group together with non-members numbering about 500 demonstrated amidst singing and dancing from the Tema Manhean Township through to the forecourt of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) where they presented a petition to Mr Ali Alidu, Head of Planning of the Assembly who received in on behalf of the Metropolitan Chief Executive.

They wore red t-shirts with the inscription:'Tema Manhean Deserves Better' and held placards some of which read, 'Tema is the industrial hub of Ghana yet we are not given employment opportunities' and 'we are tired of maize, cows, assorted drinks and food items, we need development projects too'.

Mr Henry Oninku Okoe, Assistant Public Relations Officer of the group, told the Ghana News Agency that their concerns bordered on the general poverty, diseases, deplorable state of the Tema Manhean Polyclinic, bad roads with no streetlights and pollution from industries among others.

Mr Okoe said the youth were tired of numerous promises from successive governments of rehabilitating the clinic which was built during Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia's administration and other issues affecting their standard of living.

He questioned why they had a Member of Parliament, Regional Minister and MCE who hailed from the area but no significant development was being done there adding that natives and residents were only valued during electioneering.

In the petition presented to the TMA for unward submission to government, the demonstrators indicated that the only health facility which was the Polyclinic, was in an 'ill and deplorable state' as it did not operate at night putting the lives of residents in danger during emergencies.

According to them, the health facility operates without a theater and patients of both sexes shared an eight-bed ward which was in a regrettable condition.

The petitioners noted that 'it took the group to assiduously raise some substantial amount from members and benevolent citizens within and outside Tema Manhean to purchase a delivery bed, hospital beds, couch, oxygen cylinder, swivel chairs, etc. for the facility'.

Touching on the deplorable state of the town's roads, they stated that 'we request to know what the revenues generated from the two toll booths in the town are being used for since we have been persuasively being made to pay the tolls over the years'.

They also noted that streetlights in the town had been malfunctioning for over two years without any attention making it dangerous to drive or walk by the streets at night.

They stated that even though they lived with pollution from the various companies surrounding the town, they did not receive any developmental projects from them, neither do they get employment opportunities from them.

'The Chemu lagoon is a clear case of the pollution we are faced with aside the life threatening emission surrounding us, the lagoon which was once an estuary and a habitat for fishes in now a reservoir for pollution substances and a refuse dump site.'

They also called for proper management of solid waste in the area culminating in the heaping of refuse at unauthorized places in the community which could be a cause for an epidemic outbreak.

Source: GNA