By Kofi Akordor
IT is always a privilege to be offered an opportunity to serve the public in any capacity deemed fit. It even becomes more exciting and thrilling when you realise that a chance to make a contribution to something you are very passionate about is virtually falling on your lap.
We know road safety has assumed a major national concern for obvious reasons. Road accident figures and the number of human lives lost on a daily basis have drawn attention and concern from many individuals and organisations, including corporate institutions, which have demonstrated this in many ways, including the sponsorship of many road safety educational programmes.
This column has not been silent on this national menace and the near impotence of the major state institutions such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) and the transport unions to make an impact on the fight against recklessness on the roads.
We have also come to realise that commitment and due diligence are expected from the DVLA, which is tasked to ensure that only roadworthy vehicles are permitted on the roads.
The same organisation is to ensure that only persons who have undergone full training and been tested accordingly are licensed to drive vehicles in the country.
The MTTU, on the other hand, is expected to enforce road traffic regulations to the letter to ensure that motorists conduct themselves properly on the roads, as per motor traffic regulations, and also ensure that vehicles plying the roads meet all the standards prescribed by law.
Between these two institutions, there are bound to be lapses, due either to administrative or institutional deficiencies such as poor logistics, which is one of our major problems, or the human factor, such as corrupt practices which all contribute to infringe upon road safety in the country.
This makes the work of the NRSC more difficult, as it must continue to spread and sustain its crusade on road safety in a vigorous and regular manner. In other words, packaging the right information for effective public education using the most appropriate communication channels constitute a major battle against the carnage on the roads.
I believe this might have informed the authorities to wisely decide that the media should be a key partner in the activities of the NRSC, so that apart from the professional inputs of the media in the design and implementation of public education programmes, the voice of the commission will be made louder and clearer on all platforms throughout the country.
Under the circumstances, it can be inferred that the institutional representation of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) on the board of the NRSC cannot be said to be a luxury nor an act of charity but a purposeful national necessity because we do not know of any other effective way reaching the public with education material apart from through the mass media.
Unfortunately, almost three years into the tenure of the current board of the NRSC, whether it is because of the usual bureaucracy and red-tapeism or one of those administrative lapses associated with our public service system, the GJA representative has not been sworn in to perform his statutory role on the board.
Some time in 2009, this writer was informed by the President of the GJA that he (the writer) had been nominated to represent the GJA on the NRSC board, and that to facilitate the nomination he had to submit a curriculum vitae (CV).
This was done, and according to the GJA President, the CV was forwarded to the appropriate quarters through the general secretary of the GJA.
After more than six months of waiting without any response, the GJA Secretariat was informed, during enquiries, that the first letter forwarding my name and accompanying documents might have been misdirected to the wrong place so a fresh one should be forwarded to the Ministry of Transport. That was delivered personally by this writer.
After another long wait, the GJA made another attempt — the third one — to find out what was still obstructing its nominee from representing the association on the NRSC board. Once again, no one could tell where the problem was and so another process had to be initiated. This time, this writer was given an e-mail address to forward his resume. Only God knows what it takes to serve on the NRSC board.
It has been three months since and no response has been received as to whether the latest submission has reached the appropriate quarters or, as was the case in the past, it got lost during transmission.
Even though this is not entirely strange to me, knowing how we approach important national affairs, this experience has left a sour taste in my mouth. What should have taken a few days, or even a week or two, is in the third year and there seems to be no solution in sight.
The executives of the GJA expect me to give periodic briefings on my performance on the NRSC board and each time I tell them I am still waiting for a letter confirming my membership of the board.
A successful road safety campaign hinges on a powerful and sustainable media participation. But, here we are, there has been no GJA representative on the NRSC board since 2009, not because as a professional body we did not try.
One would have thought that it would be somebody’s responsibility to make sure that the NRSC functions at full strength. In other words, all the institutions that were chosen for strategic reasons to be represented on the NRSC board would be seen to be actively participating in the affairs of the commission and collectively achieving the set objectives whose ultimate aim is to ensure sanity on the roads.
Some of us are playing and will continue to play our little roles outside the NRSC in the direction of road safety. But if institutional representation on the NRSC board is not a farce but a serious national proposition, then somebody or some people somewhere have pulled a fast one on the GJA. They have made mockery of the calls on the media to be active partners in the pursuit of the better Ghana agenda, since, in this case, from all indications they have denied the media our legitimate place on the NRSC and in effect reduced our input into road safety matters in the country.
I wish readers a peaceful and accident-free Christmas and a prosperous New Year in a advance.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Our God or their God?
By Kofi Akordor
Sometimes I am tempted to ask whether the God that we worship so much with noise is the same God that created our brothers with white skin. Do not blame me. We are so different; not for the better. Events in history and our circumstances lead me into that temptation.
Imagine a white-skinned man who out of sheer adventure came to our part of the earth. Friendly as we are, we carried this man in a hammock while some of our own people walked barefooted hacking the path through the forest for this white man until we got to the river banks where some of our people were already farming and others were fishing.
Many years later, we told as a fact that the white man who was the burden of our grandfathers was called Mungo Park and that he came from his country to come and discover us and the river we led him to. Many years after independence, we continue to have such silly questions as: “Who discovered the source of River Niger?” in our text books and our learned professors do not find any wrong with that twist of history.
Having planted this seed of inferiority complex in us, our brothers with the white skin embarked one of the greatest damages and humiliations any group of people could suffer. That was the slave trade. That saw the massive haulage of human cargo across the Atlantic to the Americas to work on farm plantations.
The evangelisation which followed stripped us of whatever was left of our natural heritage. We were told we did not know God and the word PAGAN was crafted for our use only. New names were given to us since our local names were satanic and could not be found in the books of our creator. We have since lived in the shadows of others.
So while Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Koreans and Europeans have their religions, we blacks have to fall on that of others before we can see the face of God. Whether we have succeeded or not is a different matter. But if poverty, disease, ignorance and hunger is the prize for worshipping the God they came to preach to us about, then we will say we have had enough.
Slavery and colonialism are things of the past but it seems the scars will not vanish. We continue to nurse the wounds of the past and cannot think our ways forward. As we continue to celebrate our independence, most public projects are at a standstill or have not commenced because we are waiting for a Chinese loan. In other words, without any external intervention, our life is meaningless. Why should it be so?
The great Bob Marley said it; that in the midst of abundance, the fool will still be hungry. Our case is like someone who is standing by a river bank and is still complaining of thirst. And are we not thirsty as a nation even though we have large water bodies that flow watefully into the sea? As you read this, Tema, our industrial city and parts of Accra, the national capita,l are without water because of repair works at Kpong, where the bulk of water supply comes from. Why we should rely on one major supply point of this vital comodity is itself an enigma. So ours is not because we do not have water. We are not capable of bringing the water that is available in abundance to our homes and industries. Bob Marley was right. That is why I want to know whether something went wrong during creation or whether we do not have a direct link to our creator?
Why is it that there is poverty and misery everywhere the black person finds himself? Those of us on the mother continent are not doing well with all the resources at our disposal. Those in the Diaspora, in places like Haiti, are not faring any better.
South Africa is the light on the continent obviously because of its white population. Cote d’Ivoire, until the recent political turmoil, was moving at a fast pace because of a strong French presence. Kenya is also not doing badly because it has a large Asian population which is made of serious business people. That tells a story about ourselves as people with a black skin.
Malaysia and Brazil are major cocoa producers but are not net exporters of cocoa beans. They have moved more than two steps forward by processing a larger part of their cocoa beans for value addition.
Two months ago, we celebrated the production of a million tonnes of raw cocoa beans. Meanwhile, most of the cocoa products in the supermarkets and being peddled by street vendors come from Malaysia or from the factories of the food giants such as Kraft and Nestle. Cocoa products are still a delicacy to a population which continues to hear the wonderful things cocoa has done and is still doing for this country.
Gold digging is now the craze and it appears what we call ‘galamsey’ has come to stay. The people have seen their mineral wealth going to build empires elsewhere and will not sit down again to wallow in poverty. So they will go anywhere there is gold.
We have enough resources to divert attention from gold if we can spare a few moments to think. Look at the vast Volta Lake. Tourism alone can take a lot of our young men and women off the streets if we can put that God-given resource to productive use. Any other country like Switzerland would have utilised this vast lake for money-generation and job-creation. We are still searching for solution to our unemployment and poverty problems with idle talks.
The cocoa industry can employ a lot of people if we can take the excitement from the exportation of raw cocoa beans. The aluminium industry is another major area of massive employment, apart from spearheading the country’s industrial effort.
We do not need to destroy our forests in the name of exporting timber only to turn round to import plastic furniture from outside. There are many things we can do for ourselves if our political discourse will be progressive.
Unfortunately that is not the case now. Our political debates are vile, acrimonious and vindictive. We do not care to boast the use of any means to gain or retain power. Patriots who have the interest of the country at heart cannot talk the way most of our political activists are doing. The objective can only lead to one thing — to loot and plunder.
If it is true that God made man in his own image, we have to shed that beggar image and regain our self-worthiness. We have everything to build a healthy and prosperous nation. Today we are being coerced to embrace homosexuality for aid. Obama and David Cameron will not tell that to the Chinese because they have through their own hard work crossed that barrier and are now they are in the position to call the tune.
We have more than enough to do the same or even better. Let us agree that there is nothing like foreign aid and gird our loins for our own survival. So if I question the formula for creation, I do so because in the midst of abundance, we are still hungry and still begging.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Sometimes I am tempted to ask whether the God that we worship so much with noise is the same God that created our brothers with white skin. Do not blame me. We are so different; not for the better. Events in history and our circumstances lead me into that temptation.
Imagine a white-skinned man who out of sheer adventure came to our part of the earth. Friendly as we are, we carried this man in a hammock while some of our own people walked barefooted hacking the path through the forest for this white man until we got to the river banks where some of our people were already farming and others were fishing.
Many years later, we told as a fact that the white man who was the burden of our grandfathers was called Mungo Park and that he came from his country to come and discover us and the river we led him to. Many years after independence, we continue to have such silly questions as: “Who discovered the source of River Niger?” in our text books and our learned professors do not find any wrong with that twist of history.
Having planted this seed of inferiority complex in us, our brothers with the white skin embarked one of the greatest damages and humiliations any group of people could suffer. That was the slave trade. That saw the massive haulage of human cargo across the Atlantic to the Americas to work on farm plantations.
The evangelisation which followed stripped us of whatever was left of our natural heritage. We were told we did not know God and the word PAGAN was crafted for our use only. New names were given to us since our local names were satanic and could not be found in the books of our creator. We have since lived in the shadows of others.
So while Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Koreans and Europeans have their religions, we blacks have to fall on that of others before we can see the face of God. Whether we have succeeded or not is a different matter. But if poverty, disease, ignorance and hunger is the prize for worshipping the God they came to preach to us about, then we will say we have had enough.
Slavery and colonialism are things of the past but it seems the scars will not vanish. We continue to nurse the wounds of the past and cannot think our ways forward. As we continue to celebrate our independence, most public projects are at a standstill or have not commenced because we are waiting for a Chinese loan. In other words, without any external intervention, our life is meaningless. Why should it be so?
The great Bob Marley said it; that in the midst of abundance, the fool will still be hungry. Our case is like someone who is standing by a river bank and is still complaining of thirst. And are we not thirsty as a nation even though we have large water bodies that flow watefully into the sea? As you read this, Tema, our industrial city and parts of Accra, the national capita,l are without water because of repair works at Kpong, where the bulk of water supply comes from. Why we should rely on one major supply point of this vital comodity is itself an enigma. So ours is not because we do not have water. We are not capable of bringing the water that is available in abundance to our homes and industries. Bob Marley was right. That is why I want to know whether something went wrong during creation or whether we do not have a direct link to our creator?
Why is it that there is poverty and misery everywhere the black person finds himself? Those of us on the mother continent are not doing well with all the resources at our disposal. Those in the Diaspora, in places like Haiti, are not faring any better.
South Africa is the light on the continent obviously because of its white population. Cote d’Ivoire, until the recent political turmoil, was moving at a fast pace because of a strong French presence. Kenya is also not doing badly because it has a large Asian population which is made of serious business people. That tells a story about ourselves as people with a black skin.
Malaysia and Brazil are major cocoa producers but are not net exporters of cocoa beans. They have moved more than two steps forward by processing a larger part of their cocoa beans for value addition.
Two months ago, we celebrated the production of a million tonnes of raw cocoa beans. Meanwhile, most of the cocoa products in the supermarkets and being peddled by street vendors come from Malaysia or from the factories of the food giants such as Kraft and Nestle. Cocoa products are still a delicacy to a population which continues to hear the wonderful things cocoa has done and is still doing for this country.
Gold digging is now the craze and it appears what we call ‘galamsey’ has come to stay. The people have seen their mineral wealth going to build empires elsewhere and will not sit down again to wallow in poverty. So they will go anywhere there is gold.
We have enough resources to divert attention from gold if we can spare a few moments to think. Look at the vast Volta Lake. Tourism alone can take a lot of our young men and women off the streets if we can put that God-given resource to productive use. Any other country like Switzerland would have utilised this vast lake for money-generation and job-creation. We are still searching for solution to our unemployment and poverty problems with idle talks.
The cocoa industry can employ a lot of people if we can take the excitement from the exportation of raw cocoa beans. The aluminium industry is another major area of massive employment, apart from spearheading the country’s industrial effort.
We do not need to destroy our forests in the name of exporting timber only to turn round to import plastic furniture from outside. There are many things we can do for ourselves if our political discourse will be progressive.
Unfortunately that is not the case now. Our political debates are vile, acrimonious and vindictive. We do not care to boast the use of any means to gain or retain power. Patriots who have the interest of the country at heart cannot talk the way most of our political activists are doing. The objective can only lead to one thing — to loot and plunder.
If it is true that God made man in his own image, we have to shed that beggar image and regain our self-worthiness. We have everything to build a healthy and prosperous nation. Today we are being coerced to embrace homosexuality for aid. Obama and David Cameron will not tell that to the Chinese because they have through their own hard work crossed that barrier and are now they are in the position to call the tune.
We have more than enough to do the same or even better. Let us agree that there is nothing like foreign aid and gird our loins for our own survival. So if I question the formula for creation, I do so because in the midst of abundance, we are still hungry and still begging.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The fate of our landfills
By Kofi Akordor
The recent floods that hit Accra, the nation’s capital, following hours of torrential downpour woefully exposed Accra’s vulnerability as a result of inadequate waste disposal facilities, if we can seriously say there exists any. It became clear after the heavy rains that most of the accumulated water could not find their way through the drains to finally end probably in the sea, because the drains where they existed have been taken over by waste material of various descriptions.
This, apart from the human factor, which is our poor habit of indiscriminate waste disposal, is also the consequence of lack of modern facilities for solid waste treatment and disposal.
The disposal of solid waste has always been an intractable problem throughout Ghana. In the last few years, this problem has assumed increased prominence especially in urban areas mostly owing to the fact that officialdom, as well as the general public, is gradually awakening to the health and environmental threats that looms ahead if we fail to get our act together and tackle the problem as a matter of urgency.
Ghana, just like other developing countries, has been practising land filling as result of the country’s inability to invest huge sums of capital in modern waste treatment systems and machinery as seen in most developed economies. Landfills in Ghana are primarily open dumps and abandoned old quarry pits without proper leachate or gas recovery systems. These may be located in ecological or hydrologically sensitive areas.
Over the years, Metropolitan, Municipal and District budgetary allocations for operation and maintenance of these landfills have been inadequate. This makes it difficult for operators who are charged with the maintenance of the facilities to meet the standards required for safeguarding public health and environmental quality raising crucial concerns about whether not landfills constitute a blessing or a curse to the people they are meant to serve.
Owing to the rapid rate at which urban population is increasing with a corresponding increase in waste generation, waste management operators in Ghana have had to move from one site to another in rapid succession in the last decade as these disposal sites have very short lifespan. These former dump sites include Apenkwa, Mallam, Oblogo 1 & 2, Kwashiebu, Kokroko, Mallam SCC and Sarbah.
The operation of these landfills have come with very daunting challenges which persist up till today as people who reside close to these fills and the general public have put up fierce resistance in an effort to protect their right to live in healthy and hazard-free environments.
A lot of research conducted on landfills and their implications on public health paint a very gloomy picture for this practice. Landfills are said to contain toxic groundwater contaminants, including nitrate, ammonia, solvents, PCBs, and heavy metals. Once these substances reach groundwater, the contamination can be very damaging, particularly if it reaches drinking water wells.
Many substances can make their way into drinking water. These include, but are by no means limited to, bacteria, dissolved salts, heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, and pesticides. Any number of health problems may therefore result in serious diseases, including leukemia. Contaminated groundwater can also cause contaminated air in surrounding homes, and this too poses a variety of health risks.
Surface water run-off from landfills can also be contaminated and very dangerous. Run-off can make its way into nearby bodies of water or on to private property and depending on the chemicals it contains, it can then cause harmful erosion. In instances of closed landfills that have been improperly capped, direct contact with the toxic waste can occur as well. Another major danger from landfills is that decomposing waste produces methane, an odourless gas. Upon making its way into nearby basements, methane can cause explosions. Even the regular unpleasant odours from landfills can pose problems by causing eye irritation or respiratory ailments.
Residents living in the environs of the Sarbah Landfill site near Weija have on countless occasions threatened to forcefully close down the dump sites which currently serves almost the whole of Accra as a result of experiencing some of the problems mentioned above. A resident who spoke to this reporter sent a distress call to the government to come to the rescue of the people in the area, since in his view the state of the dump sites threatens the very life of the people in the area.
“Whenever it rains, running water from the dump sites runs through many of our homes depositing a lot of garbage in the process and the stench that accompanies it cannot be described,” he explained, adding that “even our livestock and pets die when they drink from the gutters that have been contaminated by the dark-coloured water draining from the site”.
Similar complaints of health risks and threats of forceful closure have come from residents around the Abokobi Landfill site, the only site that serves the eastern part of Accra and even supports the main one at Oblogo. The aggrieved residents have severally complained that the site has exceeded its capacity but is still being used hence the compounded nature of problems being posed by the site.
When reached for his comments on the landfill situation in Ghana currently, the acting head of Zoomlion’s Landfill Unit, Mr Sackey Lyndon, confirmed that the two final disposal sites had virtually reached their maximum limits and urgently require closure. “As a matter of urgency, we must find alternative means of disposing of our waste in the months ahead because the Abokobi dump sites has exceeded its capacity and the site at Oblogo cannot go beyond December,” Mr Sackey said.
From all indications, something urgent needs to be done in respect of the final disposal of our waste as it is increasingly becoming cumbersome to find land at an acceptable location to be used as a final disposal site. Besides, we need to do all we can as a nation that claims a middle income status to discourage land filling considering the gamut of troubles that are associated with the practice. This is definitely where the much talked-about Accra Compost and Recycling Plant fits into the equation.
The last time the President of the republic, Prof. J. E. A. Mills, visited the facility nearly two months ago, refreshing news of the plant coming in to solve the nation’s waste disposal problems was everywhere in the air. The facility was then said to be about 80 per cent complete and was billed to begin operations before the end of the year although not much has been heard thereafter.
As time waits for no man, it is imperative that the government and its private sector partners act quickly to propel the plant into operation in the nearest possible time so that we will not only have a place to send our waste to but also derive substantial value from it.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
The recent floods that hit Accra, the nation’s capital, following hours of torrential downpour woefully exposed Accra’s vulnerability as a result of inadequate waste disposal facilities, if we can seriously say there exists any. It became clear after the heavy rains that most of the accumulated water could not find their way through the drains to finally end probably in the sea, because the drains where they existed have been taken over by waste material of various descriptions.
This, apart from the human factor, which is our poor habit of indiscriminate waste disposal, is also the consequence of lack of modern facilities for solid waste treatment and disposal.
The disposal of solid waste has always been an intractable problem throughout Ghana. In the last few years, this problem has assumed increased prominence especially in urban areas mostly owing to the fact that officialdom, as well as the general public, is gradually awakening to the health and environmental threats that looms ahead if we fail to get our act together and tackle the problem as a matter of urgency.
Ghana, just like other developing countries, has been practising land filling as result of the country’s inability to invest huge sums of capital in modern waste treatment systems and machinery as seen in most developed economies. Landfills in Ghana are primarily open dumps and abandoned old quarry pits without proper leachate or gas recovery systems. These may be located in ecological or hydrologically sensitive areas.
Over the years, Metropolitan, Municipal and District budgetary allocations for operation and maintenance of these landfills have been inadequate. This makes it difficult for operators who are charged with the maintenance of the facilities to meet the standards required for safeguarding public health and environmental quality raising crucial concerns about whether not landfills constitute a blessing or a curse to the people they are meant to serve.
Owing to the rapid rate at which urban population is increasing with a corresponding increase in waste generation, waste management operators in Ghana have had to move from one site to another in rapid succession in the last decade as these disposal sites have very short lifespan. These former dump sites include Apenkwa, Mallam, Oblogo 1 & 2, Kwashiebu, Kokroko, Mallam SCC and Sarbah.
The operation of these landfills have come with very daunting challenges which persist up till today as people who reside close to these fills and the general public have put up fierce resistance in an effort to protect their right to live in healthy and hazard-free environments.
A lot of research conducted on landfills and their implications on public health paint a very gloomy picture for this practice. Landfills are said to contain toxic groundwater contaminants, including nitrate, ammonia, solvents, PCBs, and heavy metals. Once these substances reach groundwater, the contamination can be very damaging, particularly if it reaches drinking water wells.
Many substances can make their way into drinking water. These include, but are by no means limited to, bacteria, dissolved salts, heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, and pesticides. Any number of health problems may therefore result in serious diseases, including leukemia. Contaminated groundwater can also cause contaminated air in surrounding homes, and this too poses a variety of health risks.
Surface water run-off from landfills can also be contaminated and very dangerous. Run-off can make its way into nearby bodies of water or on to private property and depending on the chemicals it contains, it can then cause harmful erosion. In instances of closed landfills that have been improperly capped, direct contact with the toxic waste can occur as well. Another major danger from landfills is that decomposing waste produces methane, an odourless gas. Upon making its way into nearby basements, methane can cause explosions. Even the regular unpleasant odours from landfills can pose problems by causing eye irritation or respiratory ailments.
Residents living in the environs of the Sarbah Landfill site near Weija have on countless occasions threatened to forcefully close down the dump sites which currently serves almost the whole of Accra as a result of experiencing some of the problems mentioned above. A resident who spoke to this reporter sent a distress call to the government to come to the rescue of the people in the area, since in his view the state of the dump sites threatens the very life of the people in the area.
“Whenever it rains, running water from the dump sites runs through many of our homes depositing a lot of garbage in the process and the stench that accompanies it cannot be described,” he explained, adding that “even our livestock and pets die when they drink from the gutters that have been contaminated by the dark-coloured water draining from the site”.
Similar complaints of health risks and threats of forceful closure have come from residents around the Abokobi Landfill site, the only site that serves the eastern part of Accra and even supports the main one at Oblogo. The aggrieved residents have severally complained that the site has exceeded its capacity but is still being used hence the compounded nature of problems being posed by the site.
When reached for his comments on the landfill situation in Ghana currently, the acting head of Zoomlion’s Landfill Unit, Mr Sackey Lyndon, confirmed that the two final disposal sites had virtually reached their maximum limits and urgently require closure. “As a matter of urgency, we must find alternative means of disposing of our waste in the months ahead because the Abokobi dump sites has exceeded its capacity and the site at Oblogo cannot go beyond December,” Mr Sackey said.
From all indications, something urgent needs to be done in respect of the final disposal of our waste as it is increasingly becoming cumbersome to find land at an acceptable location to be used as a final disposal site. Besides, we need to do all we can as a nation that claims a middle income status to discourage land filling considering the gamut of troubles that are associated with the practice. This is definitely where the much talked-about Accra Compost and Recycling Plant fits into the equation.
The last time the President of the republic, Prof. J. E. A. Mills, visited the facility nearly two months ago, refreshing news of the plant coming in to solve the nation’s waste disposal problems was everywhere in the air. The facility was then said to be about 80 per cent complete and was billed to begin operations before the end of the year although not much has been heard thereafter.
As time waits for no man, it is imperative that the government and its private sector partners act quickly to propel the plant into operation in the nearest possible time so that we will not only have a place to send our waste to but also derive substantial value from it.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Road safety
By Kofi Akordor
THE figures are staggering and for a country with barely one million registered vehicles, we need to sit up. According to the records of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), an average of six people die daily through road accidents. This makes road accidents one of the major causes of death in the country.
Just last Saturday, 26 people died on the spot when two vehicles, a Metro Mass Transit bus and a Benz passenger bus, collided at Pong-Tamale in the Northern Region. Many others were taken to hospital in critical condition so it will not be surprising if the death figure goes up.
A preliminary assessment indicated that the accident was caused by the recklessness of one of the drivers. That is the naked truth of our situation; the fact that most of the road accidents are caused through human error. This has been identified as speeding, wrong overtaking, driving under the influence of alcohol and sheer disregard for traffic regulations.
While it seems we all know the problem, the solution is still eluding us because those who are the targets of all road safety education – the drivers- are not interested.
If you remove the human factor, there are other factors such as broken-down vehicles which are left unattended to, the nature of the roads and the response to emergency situations which all contribute to casualty figures in the event of accidents.
It is agreed that the government has the primary responsibility to protect its citizens and road safety is not an exception. That is why more is expected from agencies such as the Ghana Police Service, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and the National Road Safety Commission to ensure safety on our roads.
Ideally, one would have wished that the state is able to fully resource and adequately equip these agencies so that they can effectively deliver their mandate. Unfortunately, we are not in good times and so it is only fair that the state opens its doors to private participation in road safety.
Kits such as speed guns to check speeding on the highways and breath analysers to check the alcohol level of drivers are in limited supply if they are available at all. Moreover that police do not have towing vehicles to remove broken-down vehicles from the roads or ambulances to convey injured accident victims to medical facilities for treatment.
It is in the spirit of public-private partnership that the government is collaborating with a new company, Road Safety Management Services Limited (RSMSL). RSMSL is set to do all the things that the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit of the Ghana Police Service and other road safety agencies are supposed to do but are unable to do, for obvious reasons.
This is a wholly-owned Ghanaian company which specialises in road safety management through the use of electronic traffic, security and safety solutions to counter the threats of security and provide around-the-clock surveillance on the road.
Reliance on MTTU personnel to enforce road traffic regulations is not yielding the needed results and it is becoming increasingly clear that if we are to get some semblance of sanity on the roads, we need to move one step ahead. So RSMSL is of the belief that with the application of technology-driven systems in road traffic management, the rate at which road accidents occur on our roads can be reduced to the barest minimum.
On that basis, RSMSL is going to provide a broad array of road safety services on a build-operate-and-transfer basis under a public-private partnership scheme.
These include financing the supply, installation, operation and maintenance of a network of traffic cameras to check excessive speeding on the roads and apprehend offending motorists; financing the building, operation and maintenance of vehicle recovery and towing service on the highways for rapid removal and recovery of accident or broken-down vehicles on the road and financing and building of rest stops on all major roads in collaboration with the relevant metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
The idea is to check driver fatigue which is another major contributory factor to accidents, especially those involving haulage trucks. These rest stops will also provide other services including quick meals and refreshment in a very relaxed and friendly environment.
RSMSL will also acquire and operate ambulances to ensure the provision of a consistent and reliable ambulance services at vantage points on the country’s major roads. RSMSL is not only about road safety. It is also an enterprise which promises to offer avenues for employment.
The project is envisaged to provide an initial employment for about 1,000 Ghanaians: those who will man the communication centres along the major roads, the central collation and response centres in the various regional capitals, recovery truck drivers and mates, technicians and other ancillary workers.
On the drawing board, this is no doubt a major enterprise which when planted on the ground could bring a lot of improvement in road safety in the country. The smooth take off of these projects presents the country with opportunities for significant development and transfer of skills in technology applications to road safety and security management and we only hope that the project moves from the dream stage to full implementation.
The carnage on our roads is becoming a nightmare and any effort that would stem the tide must be encouraged and supported by every well-meaning Ghanaian and that is why RSMSL, I believe, needs a fertile soil on which to plant its vision and mission.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
THE figures are staggering and for a country with barely one million registered vehicles, we need to sit up. According to the records of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), an average of six people die daily through road accidents. This makes road accidents one of the major causes of death in the country.
Just last Saturday, 26 people died on the spot when two vehicles, a Metro Mass Transit bus and a Benz passenger bus, collided at Pong-Tamale in the Northern Region. Many others were taken to hospital in critical condition so it will not be surprising if the death figure goes up.
A preliminary assessment indicated that the accident was caused by the recklessness of one of the drivers. That is the naked truth of our situation; the fact that most of the road accidents are caused through human error. This has been identified as speeding, wrong overtaking, driving under the influence of alcohol and sheer disregard for traffic regulations.
While it seems we all know the problem, the solution is still eluding us because those who are the targets of all road safety education – the drivers- are not interested.
If you remove the human factor, there are other factors such as broken-down vehicles which are left unattended to, the nature of the roads and the response to emergency situations which all contribute to casualty figures in the event of accidents.
It is agreed that the government has the primary responsibility to protect its citizens and road safety is not an exception. That is why more is expected from agencies such as the Ghana Police Service, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and the National Road Safety Commission to ensure safety on our roads.
Ideally, one would have wished that the state is able to fully resource and adequately equip these agencies so that they can effectively deliver their mandate. Unfortunately, we are not in good times and so it is only fair that the state opens its doors to private participation in road safety.
Kits such as speed guns to check speeding on the highways and breath analysers to check the alcohol level of drivers are in limited supply if they are available at all. Moreover that police do not have towing vehicles to remove broken-down vehicles from the roads or ambulances to convey injured accident victims to medical facilities for treatment.
It is in the spirit of public-private partnership that the government is collaborating with a new company, Road Safety Management Services Limited (RSMSL). RSMSL is set to do all the things that the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit of the Ghana Police Service and other road safety agencies are supposed to do but are unable to do, for obvious reasons.
This is a wholly-owned Ghanaian company which specialises in road safety management through the use of electronic traffic, security and safety solutions to counter the threats of security and provide around-the-clock surveillance on the road.
Reliance on MTTU personnel to enforce road traffic regulations is not yielding the needed results and it is becoming increasingly clear that if we are to get some semblance of sanity on the roads, we need to move one step ahead. So RSMSL is of the belief that with the application of technology-driven systems in road traffic management, the rate at which road accidents occur on our roads can be reduced to the barest minimum.
On that basis, RSMSL is going to provide a broad array of road safety services on a build-operate-and-transfer basis under a public-private partnership scheme.
These include financing the supply, installation, operation and maintenance of a network of traffic cameras to check excessive speeding on the roads and apprehend offending motorists; financing the building, operation and maintenance of vehicle recovery and towing service on the highways for rapid removal and recovery of accident or broken-down vehicles on the road and financing and building of rest stops on all major roads in collaboration with the relevant metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
The idea is to check driver fatigue which is another major contributory factor to accidents, especially those involving haulage trucks. These rest stops will also provide other services including quick meals and refreshment in a very relaxed and friendly environment.
RSMSL will also acquire and operate ambulances to ensure the provision of a consistent and reliable ambulance services at vantage points on the country’s major roads. RSMSL is not only about road safety. It is also an enterprise which promises to offer avenues for employment.
The project is envisaged to provide an initial employment for about 1,000 Ghanaians: those who will man the communication centres along the major roads, the central collation and response centres in the various regional capitals, recovery truck drivers and mates, technicians and other ancillary workers.
On the drawing board, this is no doubt a major enterprise which when planted on the ground could bring a lot of improvement in road safety in the country. The smooth take off of these projects presents the country with opportunities for significant development and transfer of skills in technology applications to road safety and security management and we only hope that the project moves from the dream stage to full implementation.
The carnage on our roads is becoming a nightmare and any effort that would stem the tide must be encouraged and supported by every well-meaning Ghanaian and that is why RSMSL, I believe, needs a fertile soil on which to plant its vision and mission.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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