The Accra we know

As a native of Accra who grew up in the city, there are still fond memories of what it used to be some four decades ago.

The environment was cleaner, there was less congestion, we had a lot of open spaces, playing grounds where we had a lot of fun and the language you often hear being spoken is the local language called ‘Ga’. We also moved about anywhere in the city, even in the night, without fear.

Accra is no more what it used to be and looking back after my recent visit to my base in Europe those nostalgic moments keeps coming back to mind. It was only two and half years before this my latest visit and the change is enormous. Prices of goods and services have soared high - nearly to be compared to what is in Europe. Those empty spaces and corners I used to pass where I grew up in the suburb of the city have all been turned into people’s homes, some with ram shackled kiosks and structures not befitting places of human habitation and it doesn’t appear safe with the growing number of criminal activities, on a higher scale armed robbery.

In the first week of arrival an acquaintance who was having her hair done at a beauty salon had her beautiful Toyota car taken away from her. She had packed the car outside the salon when some gangsters popped in demanding to know whose car has been packed outside. She questioned the reason behind the question but before she could ask the next question, they pointed a gun to her face demanding the keys to her car and took it away, all these happening in broad day light. The car has since not been recovered. Has it come to this in Accra? I asked.
As if that’s not frightening enough for me to hear, within the same week my nephew, a 26-year-old Pastor was shot and killed in an armed robbery case in the full glare of his wife who is 6 months pregnant. The young Pastor who resides outside Accra was passing the night in the house of his senior brother (also a Pastor) after a wedding he attended with his wife when the armed gang burst in shooting him in the process of robbery. The four armed gang involved in the raid were apprehended later, thanks to the efforts of the police and on the course of justice each was jailed 20 years. I cannot say how the justice system works on this in Ghana but a 20-year jail punishment for such a heinous crime, to me, is a slap on the wrist. Those notorious criminals, who do not deserve to live on this earth, will be out in the streets in less than 20 years to continue from where they left off. Meanwhile, a life is lost and the family will be devastated for life. I got scared with these two incidents, not a welcome news for me.
As I made my way much more into the city I realized the growing business is selling goods (food, household needs, building materials etc.) and people do not care where they pitch their tent or kiosk, arrange their items and ready for buyers.

Hygienic conditions are very poor, what you see is filthy environments with stagnant waters here and there as if they are breeding mosquitoes. People sit and work in the dirt as if there are no consequences to their health. I asked about who is responsible for rubbish disposals in the city and it does seems which company or individuals involved are only scratching the surface of the sanitation problem. What they do is collect the rubbish (not at all places) and dump it into holes and empty spaces outside the city suburbs. I had prior information there’s not a single incinerator or means of finally disposing of waste in the city and that was confirmed. So I asked again, what the Government is doing about it. Surprisingly, our members of Parliament, Ministers and people who are in the seat of decision making processes all drive their cars (their Mercedes and expensive top of the range cars) through those unhygienic and unhealthy environments to their houses without a care in the world finding a solution to the problem.
In talking about health the major hospital of Accra, ‘Korle Bu Teaching Hospital’, is nothing to write home about. Basic equipments and facilities have broken down or they are non-existent. I now understand why our politicians and the ‘big men’ are flown outside the country for medical treatment if they fall sick. That appears to be a slap in the face of the ordinary Ghanaian. The poor worker at Electricity Corporation or any of the Government Ministries have no such facilities for overseas treatment; the only time he is taken into consideration is during election time when his vote is needed. We don’t seem to know where our priorities lie, everything seems to be answered with ‘no money’ yet our Government or people in authority know where to put the money when it is in their interest. My observation is, if we have a problem we live with it without finding a solution. For instance, if we don’t have enough electrical energy to serve the population our solution is to ration the power without thinking of how we can get a continuous flow of it, if we don’t have water running in our homes everyone should get containers to buy water from tankers - that’s our solution to the problem.
Some streets of Accra have taken a major face lift but it still lacks what it takes to absorb some of the growing traffic of vehicles. I think consideration should have been given to a heavy traffic the Spintex Road is going to carry when under construction in view of industries located in the area and the fact that it’s a major road that links the Tetteh Quarshie roundabout to Nungua on the way to Tema. You could get stuck up in traffic in that area for hours. It does also seems our authorities has still not come out with a solution all these years to the choked traffic along the La Balm Beach on its way to Teshie/Nungua road which also leads to Tema. Mind you the city of Accra is bustling with some of the most beautiful cars you can find anywhere in the world. How the owners of these cars manage to maintain and fuel these vehicles in the face of economic crisis in the country beat my imagination. But that is the Ghanaian and the way we can show off even when things appear gloomy – you can’t beat them. And whilst we are still on it about traffic, come to think of the vendors on the streets who compete with vehicles on the roads. You can find almost everything you will buy in a shopping mall here plus many more by these vendors – call it a ‘mobile shop’.
On the other side of this it looks dangerous and I understand some are killed in the process of selling their goods. Another sad side of this is seeing the disabled struggling to have some few coins to make a living.
I will not forget the youngsters of school going age also out in the streets selling when they should be in school. My heart bleeds thinking of the situation. I pasted some few questions why the Government will not create localities in all these areas for these vendors to sell their goods in comfort than going through the dangerous paths of running alongside vehicles. The response was, they will not go to such a place but prefer competing with vehicles as to who has a right of way selling their goods. Why then the government will not make a law, have offenders arrested and prosecuted if they flout the law of selling in the street? That was another question. Here again, I am told the Government will not enforce such a law because they will lose their popularity, all in the name of politics.
I have no idea what the story is like in other cities, but corruption and bribery is on the ascendency in Accra. Mind you documents do not move if there are no ‘extras’ to grease people’s palms after the actual fees have been paid. It looks as if the whole thing has been legalized. Even after paying the ‘extras’ people think they are doing you a favor for processing your documents.
The Greater Accra Region is the smallest Region but seems to be the most populated. People have drifted into the city of Accra believing it’s the best place to get business right and places like Makola Market, Kaneshie Market and Abossey Okai are among the busy centers with selling and buying. I noticed also there are not many Ghana made goods, majority are imported giving the Chinese, Indians and Malaysians and others a ready market for their goods. But why is it so? Ghanaians prefer goods from outside rather than their own locally produced goods, I’m told. So I asked why not send Ghanaians to learn how some of these imported goods are produced and come back to produce the same quality in Ghana, in some cases we have the raw materials. They will not, because importation itself has also become another big business in Ghana.
You will feel uncomfortable with the frequent power outage and lack of water in the city. If we want to attract investors to Ghana then our Government should see that these are high priority areas – unfortunately we don’t see which area is a priority and which is not. No serious investor will want to put his money in a place where there is no guarantee of good supply of electricity and water.
Accra also make you feel the discomfort of untarred roads especially in the suburbs of the city (a friend refers to it as ‘red carpet’) but It’s good news to notice you can get the local transport of mini buses (‘tro-tro’) to any corner of the city. At one point in time, I decided to park my car and enjoy a ‘tro-tro’ ride, it was a nice experience and it made me remember those days when I ply them to school and back. And in the midst of chieftaincy disputes and internal ranglings in their rank and file has the natives of Accra lost it all?
There was some worry when I noticed the indigenous language called ‘Ga’ appears to have given way to the native language of the ‘Akans’, (‘Twi’) which is now widely spoken. It’s a pity and the natives of Accra must sit up.
Accra really needs a major shake up to bring it to where it was. The empty spaces and less congestion with it some forty years age will not be the same but our authorities have a duty to bring it to a status that befits the nation’s capital.
The first step is to find concrete solutions to the unhygienic environments, the interrupted supply of electricity and water and make a law that will remove the ram shackled kiosks and structures. With that we are on the way of being proud of pointing to the city of Accra as the capital city of Ghana.