By John K. Essel. Kumasi.
Pix Mr Ibrahim Adam (middle) Chairman of Board of Agriculture Development Bank, interacting with some Executive members of the Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineers after the opening ceremony a the Fifth National Conference of the Agricultural Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
With them include Mr E. Buckson (right) Executive Secretary of Ghana Institute of Engineering, and Mr D. Lamptey, (left) President of Society.
THE two day conference under a theme “Agricultural Engineering for Commercial Food Production and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana, was aimed at finding the solution to improve upon agriculture development in the country.
Speaking at the opening session, Mr Ibrahim Adam, stated that agric engineering have a major role to pray for the designing modern of agricultural equipment and tools to improve upon agricultural production in the country and stressed need to sustain agricultural production by ensure quality production and marketing.
He said the country has expertises and called for closer collaboration with policy makers to ensure the agriculture development in the country.
He said the doors of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) are open for any group of people or individuals for the development of the agriculture industry.
Prof W. O. Ellis, Vice Chancellor of (KNUST) said agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy and therefore stressed the need to adopt modern technology to attract the youth in the agriculture production in the country.
He called for adoption of commercial farms by intensifying research and training to move the development of agriculture forwards.
He said the university has intensified its policies to produce quality products to meet the national demand to enhance national socio-economic development.
Mr D. Lamptey, President of the Society, called for the need for the increase of Agric students as well as Agricultural Engineers to produce simple equipment for the food production in the country. By John K. Essel. Kumasi.
Pix Mr Ibrahim Adam (middle) Chairman of Board of Agriculture Development Bank, interacting with some Executive members of the Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineers after the opening ceremony a the Fifth National Conference of the Agricultural Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
With them include Mr E. Buckson (right) Executive Secretary of Ghana Institute of Engineering, and Mr D. Lamptey, (left) President of Society.
THE two day conference under a theme “Agricultural Engineering for Commercial Food Production and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana, was aimed at finding the solution to improve upon agriculture development in the country.
Speaking at the opening session, Mr Ibrahim Adam, stated that agric engineering have a major role to pray for the designing modern of agricultural equipment and tools to improve upon agricultural production in the country and stressed need to sustain agricultural production by ensure quality production and marketing.
He said the country has expertises and called for closer collaboration with policy makers to ensure the agriculture development in the country.
He said the doors of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) are open for any group of people or individuals for the development of the agriculture industry.
Prof W. O. Ellis, Vice Chancellor of (KNUST) said agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy and therefore stressed the need to adopt modern technology to attract the youth in the agriculture production in the country.
He called for adoption of commercial farms by intensifying research and training to move the development of agriculture forwards.
He said the university has intensified its policies to produce quality products to meet the national demand to enhance national socio-economic development.
Mr D. Lamptey, President of the Society, called for the need for the increase of Agric students as well as Agricultural Engineers to produce simple equipment for the food production in the country.
By Kofi Akordor
While the rest of us stayed in line crawling agonisingly in heavy traffic, a different breed of superior beings drive past very fast on the shoulders of the road which have become their expressways. Pedestrians and other motorists dare not drop their guard, otherwise they will be crushed to death.
Hawkers, shop owners and roadside workshops have always been at the mercy of these rampaging, lawless and arrogant drivers of commercial vehicles who have turned the city roads into a jungle where their animalistic instincts are in full display.
Theirs is a world where law and order does not exist and who have taken the police for granted. Those who could no longer endure the menace, in their attempt to escape the wrath of these arrogant, wicked and dangerous drivers, try to put impediments on their path by blocking portions of the road with old tyres, stones, cement blocks and metal bars. But they are not deterred. They will meander past these obstacles with greater venom and create bigger problems than they usually do.
Precious lives have been lost, among them schoolchildren and street hawkers, the sick and the old. Properties too have been destroyed. Still the menace is there, smoothened by occasional assurances of deterrent action by the law enforcement agencies.
Some of us heaved a heavy sigh of relief when a new Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service in the person of a brother and a colleague communication scientist, Assistant Commissioner of Police Awuni Angwubutoge, was named.
Some of us rejoiced because we know our man very well and we know if there is someone who can confront these hooligans with success, it must be Awuni. He is not just outspoken and down-to-earth, he also acts his words.
He is the type whose approach to duty can even be met with hostility from members of his own establishment because of their forthrightness and determination to succeed where others have given up and thrown up their arms in frustrating despair.
He belongs to that class of people who work with zeal and are ready to sacrifice for the work if it even means challenging the status quo.
True to his character, ACP Awuni, on taking over as the Commander of the MTTU, pledged to bring sanity on the roads and put a stop to the free reign of those commercial drivers using the shoulders of the roads as expressways.
Almost a year into his administration, it appears ACP Awuni is against a tough and very steep uphill task. The illegal expressways created by the commercial drivers are as busy as ever and the drivers themselves are operating with greater impunity than before. One of them, according to newspaper reports, even recently had the nerves to attack the MTTU commander himself.
If our city roads are unsafe, travelling on our highways has become more or less like a journey of no return. Relatives and friends who accompany their loved ones to the lorry stations may be waving them a final farewell without knowing it.
The carnage on the roads has assumed alarming proportions and there seems to be no solutions in sight. The statistics is quite revealing and alarming. According to MTTU records, in the first six months of this year alone, 6,449 accident cases involving 9,222 vehicles were recorded. For the period (January-June, 2011), 1,081 lives were lost while 6,209 others got injured. The figure shows a marginal increase over last year’s.
At the heart of road accidents in the country is the human factor. A common observation which has been documented and widely accepted by experts and ordinary people is traffic indiscipline exhibited by many of the drivers on the road.
Most of the drivers, as a result of inadequate training and poor educational backgrounds, know or pay very little attention to traffic regulations. There is also open display of irresponsible behaviour partly due to bad character and other influences such as alcohol and illicit drugs.
These transform into speeding, wrong overtaking and other careless manouvrings which pose danger to all other road users.
It is not that we do not have enough laws to check human behaviour on the roads. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) of the Ministry of Transport begins the process of bringing sanity on our roads and promoting law and order by examining and licensing vehicles as being roadworthy.
It also examines those who apply for driving and give them certification as qualified both mentally and physically to drive vehicles of various specifications.
Any slip on the part of DVLA, whether deliberately or by default, means we are at risk.
The MTTU is to ensure that all vehicles on the roads have certification from the DVLA as being roadworthy. It also ensures that all persons driving vehicles possess valid driving licences.
The MTTU has a bigger responsibility to right the wrongs allowed into the system by the DVLA. This means even though a person may possess a driving licence, it is the duty of the MTTU personnel to satisfy themselves that the so-called driver is actually qualified and driving according to the motor regulations.
They must also make assure that vehicles plying the roads are truly roadworthy and not only possessing road worthy certificates. They must also process for prosecution drivers who infringe the law.
The presence of MTTU personnel is in itself a guarantee of safety on the roads since they become the watchdogs and an inspiration for the rest of us.
This means the physical presence of the MTTU personnel must be seen and felt at all times on all our roads both in the cities, towns and on the highways.
The unit must have vehicles to move personnel round at all times. It must have vehicles patrolling the roads and streets at all times. It must have towing vehicles to clear the roads of breakdown and accident vehicles and ambulances to convey the injured to hospitals when there is an accident.
It should also have hearses for those who could not survive accidents.
How is the MTTU faring in our circumstances? Seriously the MTTU, like other wings of the Ghana Police Service, is hampered by inadequate resources, both in terms of human resource and logistics. Out of a total police strength of 20,000, MTTU personnel account for only 8.89 per cent.
The number is woefully inadequate and leaves the personnel thinly spread on the ground. The problem is further compounded when divisional, district and unit points are left unmanned, because the men have been withdrawn for other more important assignments.
As stated earlier, the MTTU is heavily constrained by inadequate logistics. This is a unit which should be highly mobile but unfortunately lacks all manner of vehicles. Special and important operations are, therefore, abandoned mid-way because the old and weak vehicles break down and cannot successfully execute the day’s assignment.
MTTU personnel who are to police the roads very often have to rely on the generosity of private or commercial drivers, thereby compromising them in the effective discharge of statutory duties. A few days ago, I saw a police vehicle being towed by a private truck. So what happens when a truck breaks down and abandoned in the middle of the road? Any wonder that broken-down vehicles left in the middle of the road continue to be a major cause of accidents on the highways?
Apart from these inadequacies, the MTTU lacks any effective command structure. The MTTU Commander sounds a huge title but operationally has very little to command. Beyond Accra Central, the title loses its meaning because he lacks authority in Greater Accra, let alone the rest of the country.
Operationally, MTTU personnel outside Accra are under the command of the various Regional Commanders. In effect, the national MTTU lacks the operational capacity to operate in the regions outside the Accra Central Business District.
The situation does not provide any opportunity to prepare strategic enforcement plan for the major highways where a high proportion of serious accidents occurs.
One could now appreciate why ACP Awuni’s pledge to bring sanity on the roads seems to be yielding little results.
The MTTU, as a human institution, has its fair share of human frailty, no matter how hard they try. It has its deviants, fifth columnists and those with purely mercenary motives and so on. One should expect miracles even if the unit has its full complement of staff and equipment. But still the difference would have been clear.
This is an institution that so much is expected from yet very little is given. It could be admitted that even with the limited resources, the unit could have performed better. But very often when you are overwhelmingly weighed down by problems, the little goodness in you gets diluted by evil things. It is, therefore, not surprising that of all the units of the Ghana Police Service, it is the MTTU that is castigated most.
While demanding that the few bad ones straighten their ways, shall we also demand that the unit is revamped and well-equipped ? Under the present circumstances, the burden is too much. That is why Brother Awuni and his team are losing the battle against irresponsible and careless driving on the roads and highways.
Just pointing accusing fingers at them will not solve our problem neither will it end the carnage on the roads. If we really value our lives, then we must demand a better equipped MTTU with a well-trained personnel to do the policing to our satisfaction.
All the same, Brother, do not give up. I still want you to use your limited resources to do something about those crazy drivers who are tormenting us on the Spintex Road and elsewhere with their brand of driving skills.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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