ACCRA CAN NEVER BE DECONGESTED.....

In this way!!

Dear Mr.Vanderpuije,

You may not know me, just as I didn’t you until your nomination as Mayor of Accra. Though I do not share in your party’s ideologies and dislike its approach to governance, I am one of the few people who supported your appointment as Mayor of Accra for two reasons. One being the dark mythical thought of us Ghanaians having to unfoundedly reject every Ghanaian appointee from outside Ghana, yet enjoy licking the honey that the remittances and investments of diasporan Ghanaians bring. The second is my curiosity revealed that you are an Adventist, bearing in mind the level of self-discipline, honesty and time consciousness of TRUE Adventists.

The first I heard your voice was on your interview on Joy fm’s super morning show and sadly, this is what I thought of you after that; ‘A man approaching his duty with guns blazing, yet has no idea which angle to fire his shots.’

I am sorry to put this damper on what started seemingly as a praise hymn, but as is the thought shared by many young Ghanaians today, we stand by our country always and with Government, only when it deserves it. Patriotism is the name for that.

Your approach to decongesting the capital city is best described as appalling, lacking creativity and bound for failure at conception! It is beginning to be unbearably agonising when we keep on having the same people, doing the same thing, with the same approach, time and again...yet expecting a different result. Yet, unlike many people who do not side with you politically, I refuse to critique without offering a counter solution.

You have undoubtedly achieved a lot in your specialty; I congratulate you for that, but kindly pay heed to these words of advice.

LESSON 1:

No individual has the right to stifle another’s effort to genuinely make a living. While Individuals in Cars deserve to get home early, retire to bed early enough to get up for work so their bills can be paid and their kids can stay in school, Hawkers have bills to pay as well and some have kids in school too.

LESSON 2:

Whenever your predecessor attempts a task and fails miserably, all it calls for is to adopt a new strategy, work with a fresh set of ideas and embrace a more tactical approach.

This approach is what I am going to try to articulate, and as the elders have always said; save it ‘in your knees’!

Accra has two major problems, both solvable and are what has given rise to Hawking and unwarranted traffic congestion. The first of these problems is lack of properly decentralized infrastructure(I include private amenities too). This seems a bit jargonised so I will break it down in simple terms.

When all men, women, boys and girls of Accra wake up, they all head in one direction. Not because they have nowhere else to go, but they have to go to the one place where everything else is and everyone else goes. Ministries, Offices, Entertainment and food, amusement, Hotels, relaxation, Worship and lately schools are all located within a 3km radius of the centre of Accra. Traders need to target customers on their way to and fro these locations, so is it surprising that they intercept them? Does it surprise you that there is an endless spring up of trading activities in the centre of the capital? Lesson learnt; you do not rush off to build Market places for traders when there is no one plying that route, how are they going to make any sale from there?

My advice is, engage these stakeholders in serious talk as you read this letter. The PWD, TUC, Ghana Post, Registrar General’s department, GREDA and the Government of Ghana.

Advise the Registrar General to put a hold on all new businesses registering say 5km Radius within the Central Business Area of the Capital. While that is on Hold, engage businesses in the Central Business Area in talks to start considering relocating, to other Areas of the Capital. This can only be effective if Government leads the way; by relocating the Ministries, and most Public Building to as far close to the oust skirts of Accra. Discuss this with Prof., he will be amazed at your ingenuity and maybe give you a medal for that. You do not need money for this, so do not start considering a budget for that. Engage private developers in a serious negotiation to convert some existing CBA buildings into Multi-storey rental flats in the centre on exchange terms. The interim result from this will be a similar rush hour morning traffic outflow from the CBA to the inflow. You will encounter the problem that businesses will be lost in competing when they move out of the CBA, but that is as a result of the second biggest problem that everyone takes for granted.

The capital has no comprehensive address system. With such a system, consisting of proper identification of streets and all properties, you are bound to be found wherever in Accra your business is hiding; by engaging the services of efficient advertisers. Once again, you do not need to start thinking about tax money, if I were you; I would start considering selling Street Names to raise money or launching the ‘Sponsor a Street’ programme. This has not yet made mention of how many new advertising jobs, print journals, business directories etc that will compulsorily have to be created because of this activity. Oh! And you can confidently place a ban on prolific disgusting signboard erections which makes the capital very unattractive.

How many more people will have to site Basic Schools by a major Highway, or create shopping malls on junctions of High Speed Highways, or monumental structures in the centre of the city before we realise we have lost control over planning .People are just competing to attract consumer attention by hook or crook whereas they could attract the same attention wherever they are sited if they are properly identified while creating relevant advertising jobs. As you have lived in the USA, you should know better that businesses there do not have to chase land beside the New Jersey Turnpike, to succeed in the world of commerce or small businesses have to cram in Times Square, to be able to attract one customer.

I will end by advising you of the countless secondary jobs that CAN be created by supervising the success of a proper property identification system (PIS). You can engage Ghana Post in talks to move off P.O.Boxes to proper PIS numbers with well defined postcodes. That means 2000+ new jobs created in mail sorters, mail handlers, mail distributers as well as private couriers. Young entrepreneurs can trade on the internet and work from home, trade online. The catering industrialists will not cram spaces in the CBD. They can reach anywhere in the capital with their services, delivery drivers will be employed, telephone usage will increase, telecom competition will be heightened, telecom profits will go up, they will reinvest, sales jobs will be created, there will be less usage of private transport, petrol usage will go down, banks can identify their customers to a fixed abode, credit referencing will be more credible, flow of credit will be enhanced, people’s dreams of starting businesses will be realised, unwarranted inflation of land prices around the CBD will be curbed.

I will discuss how that will improve security in terms of Police response time wise and strategy wise in terms of barricading certain outlet roads depending on where a crime is reported when I write to you again.

The ball is in your court, from this time on I will be following up on how things are going. I understand this option is a harder one so you might take the easier option of putting this piece in a paper shredder. That will be justified, after all I am only a quarter of a century old and as has been the case always, young people are good for nothing.

This should be enough evidence of that.

Thank you.

Boadi-Danquah (ebdanquah.blogspot.com)

eb00026@surrey.ac.uk

GHANA NEEDS SOME POWER SHARING

In recent years, the continent of Africa has quite often woken up to outdoor the birth of a new but rather serendipitous system of Government.

Being unsullied, morally justified and clearly bearing the torch of the last glimpse of hope; it is ironically born out of a brutal struggle, unwarranted abuse and worst of all, bloodshed. Maybe we can be fed with the tranquilizing dose, that ‘good things don’t come easy!’. Maybe not! Not when innocent blood is shed.

The power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe brokered by Ex south African president, Thabo Mbeki; that of Kenya by Mr. Kofi Annan have no doubt proven against all odds to have an ability to calm tensions, focus a country on a National agenda (not a party’s agenda) and foster a more sustainable era of peace and tranquillity.

Let us not be hasty to conclude that this does not come with its challenges. In Zimbabwe today, the MDC is perpetually accusing the Mugabe regime of lack of representation in critical matters and also by passing the terms of agreement to implement institutions that are otherwise outside his jurisdiction.

In Kenya, where the coalition superficially seems to be working, it has not translated into the lives of ordinary citizens. There is also a quest by supposedly wide-eyed critics who still believe that perpetrators of various degrees of atrocities ought to be brought to book.

But let us also not loose cognisance of the fact that all the key players involved in this system of Government never sought after it. It is a compromise they had to stick to. They never anticipitated having to entertain an opposition’s involvement in their governance, but unfortunately (for them) it was shoved down their throats. Not to make a big case out of nothing, ordinary Kenyans (like Ghanaians) still believe that their richness lies in the peaceful coexistence of all their 42 tribes, with a well balanced leadership; yet their politicians think otherwise. The thought here now is; will that not once again take us to another power sharing? Does that not rather prick our intellect, to institute a system where Governance (not legislature) truly represents the will of the people? Devoid of any imposition of leaders on people whatsoever at whatever level?

In all well established Democracies, Power sharing is the core of their establishment and its enormous contribution to the National Agenda is neither overlooked nor compromised in whatever case. In the US for instance, all states elect their own Governors, based on the same party lines as in a General election. In addition to that, there is the House of representative and the Senate making up the US Congress; who all come from different Political backgrounds, share in different political ideologies and yet come together to forge ahead a National agenda towards the realisation of ‘the American dream’.

While one may argue rightly that the US is a federation and hence such a system is very well justified, we stand a fair chance of losing thought of the fact that the founding fathers of the American democracy which has robustly stood the test of time could easily in those days have inserted in their constitution, a clause to permit the President to impose on each state who their Governor should be. I bet this would have been a big challenge if the model of the federal system of governance was born out of a sort of what is practised in Ghana today.

Permit me to buttress my argument with a more relevant system of Governance to ours, the UK local governance intergrated into the Weatminster ideology!. A typical example of how ‘disguised’ power sharing is firmly rooted in the build up to established democracies and prosperous countries for that matter; is that of a resident of Fremington in Devon. His local councillor is Rodney Cann (Independent) but the leader of his county council Councillor John Hart (Conservative), still bearing in mind that the Prime Minister of the Kingdom is Gordon Brown (Labour) and the newly elected speaker of the House of Commons is Jon Bercow (Conservative). The entire local government build up celebrates the diversity of political ideologies and exploits its riches for the benefit of ordinary people. If the UK is facing developmental issues because of such a system, then we probably have to consider wiping Ghana off the map of a developing world.

All throughout history, wise men have sought ways and means to tap into the diversity of Political ideologies to benefit ordinary people and to develop a country. That is why as a country, we should bow our head in shame for allowing our treasured human resource to wander about untapped all because of our ‘winner takes-all’ political system which benefits no one. I write with regret of how as a country we wasted 8years not fresh ingenuity by the man who spearheaded the implementation of the VAT scheme only to bring him back when his battery is almost flat and has physically ran out of steam(obviously). I know that if the NDC held control of a few assemblies for the past 8 years, most campaign promises would not have been hypothetical and before our eyes, we could have measured their achievements in their respective assemblies to make more informed electoral choices.

Yet as I write now, 2001 world finance minister of the year who is a full blooded Ghanaian is serving on a board that advises the Government of Liberia on prudent economic policies as well as the indefatigable young man, who approached the management of the central bank of Ghana with all guns blazing, is wandering somewhere in Canada, preparing young Canadians to take charge of their economic future.

A balanced system of governance quickly spring a thought up of disbursement of funds and implementing policies because of a perceived string of potential bottlenecks, but let there be no doubt that for a country with a National Agenda, there is no such danger at all. Issues that focus on economic growth, individual welfare, security, health , human rights, education etc flow down through to the local people with no hitch at all; even more efficiently is the manner in which issues that seek not more than the parochial interests of individuals are choked up by one bottleneck or the other along the line. More relevant to such a system is the thought that someone looks over your shoulder at any point in time, so you can only focus on what is right and keep selfish thoughts to yourself.

In all these established democracies and prosperous countries, NO citizen goes to the poll with the slightest anticipation of post-election violence or in some instances vote rigging; because after all in their elections there is always one winner, THE PEOPLE. Let us not be thrown adrift by the sudden unwarranted thought that countries like UK, USA, Canada or Australia are more intelligent than Africans. Definitely NOT! All they live off is the prognosis by their fore bearers and their swift action to institutionalise systems totally eliminates all agony that could come with the loss of an election; be it how people have to wait years for their good policies to be implemented or how inferior people cannot survive in a competitive world because their honey taps have ran dry.

Ghana’s elections in the past have been free (fair is arguable) but let us ignore how volatile the thought of hungry men could be. Let us not be deceived by the endless praise showered on us for our democracy, which in perspective is hanging by a thread. It only takes one man dissatisfied by the thought of wandering in the political wilderness for 8years (potentially) to call the shot. Our country is no better than Kenya nor Nigeria nor Zimbabwe nor anywhere else that has in the past exploded due to the thought of power drunk, self seekers!

Let us not wait for what happened in Kenya or Zimbabwe to take us by a sudden flight. Power sharing is not a compromise to be reached after properties are destroyed or innocent blood is shed; it is a wakeup call that lingers around our corners. We may have in the past let our children and youth down, but this will guarantee their future; that they can live in a country where election of leaders is the least threat to stability. We can make this investment and be rest assured, that its returns can be very little short of perfect. For the stability of our country, prioritising our National agenda and undoubtedly, peace of mind for generations to come; just as a young Canadian friend said, ‘who worries about who is elected Prime Minister? The job description is the same....carry on our National Agenda’.