Comment: After The Fire At The Foreign Ministry?

MATTERS ARISING BY William Oduro

As is often the case in Ghana, after the initial hue and cry that accompany any disaster or unfortunate incident, there is always the tendency to forget and sort of wait for another one to occur or re-occur and then start crying from the roof tops without a conscious effort made to get to the bottom of it and devise corrective measures to forestall its re-occurrence. A case in point is the unfortunate Accra sports stadium disaster which took the lives of our own kith and kin. It is interesting to know that our sport stadia are still over packed and rules and regulations are not enforced which invariably leads to a situation where another stadium disaster is bound to happen in the not too distant future.

It is unfortunate that we have politicized every aspect of our national life to the point where we look at events/ occurrences through political lenses rather than being realistic and tackle our challenges in a more nationalistic fervor. After we have all retreated to our partisan corners and commonsense prevails, there is the need to clearly think through our acts of commission and omission that contribute to such unfortunate events and be proactive by putting measures in place to forestall its recurrence.

The fire that gutted the foreign affairs building a couple of weeks ago is one such unfortunate incident which we must see as an opportunity to look holistically at our building code and more importantly work at solutions to prevent other state buildings from suffering the same fate.

Although l do concede that the cause of the fire has not been determined as the President did promise to set up a committee to investigate and “get to the bottom of it”, Ghanaians cannot wait for another one of our national edifices to be razed down by another fire because the committee is yet to be formed and ultimately present a report which will suffer the same fate as previous reports which are gathering dust and mildew on shelves of policy implementers at the various ministries.

As a matter of urgency, an independent building and code inspector such as the architectural and engineering services commission (ASEC) should be engaged to immediately commence the process of accessing the potential of fire outbreaks in all governmental buildings and make recommendations to help prevent fire outbreaks in these buildings. Because of the intermittent and erratic nature of our power supply, the recommendations should include re-wiring of older buildings and the installation of surge protectors to help contain unnecessary power surges which the ECG and the National Grid Company seem not to be able to control. Also clearly delineated exit and entry points should be posted to make it easier for unimpeded access to and from these buildings and in the likely event of a fire outbreak, to help save lives and property.

Fortunately, some government buildings have unimpeded access but what good is it if the National Fire Service is not well resourced to contain and quench fires in a timely manner? I am consciously optimistic of the President’s promise to equip the National fire service to perform their duties efficiently because we have heard several of these promises in the past which have never materialized because once the peoples’ attention and memories begin to fade with time, the tendency on the part of leadership is to ignore these incidents or sweep it under the carpet and hope and pray it does not show up on the radar with the occurrence of another unfortunate incident. The role of the National Fire Service in fire prevention, containment and management in our national developmental aspirations should be recognized, acknowledged and most importantly strategically positioned by adequately resourcing them to play its role as our first responders when fire breaks out.

I doubt if our National edifices are insured against both preventable and unpreventable destructions. If they were insured, I believe Ghanaians would not have endured the humiliation of soliciting for donations from other countries to help ameliorate our unfortunate losses as it happened with the Chinese offering us $40,000.00 worth of computer equipment after the fire that totally destroyed the Foreign Affairs Building. How shameful? Have we lost all our pride and dignity as Ghanaians? Anyway, we should as part of our public policy immediately insure all our Government buildings including the new Presidential Palace so that in the very likely event of a loss, the people of Ghana will not have to endure yet another humiliation by disgracefully going hand in hat begging for other nations to donate towards restoring these buildings.

We obviously cannot keep doing the same things and expect different results as a nation. Our forward march to progress cannot continue to be dictated by a reactionary attitude to problem solving that is why there is an urgent need to be proactive in our approach to issues that confront us as a nation. Nation building, as difficult as it, is not rocket science or the re-invention of the wheel. Other people have done it and l dare say, “Yes We can”.