Features
Abandoned projects: Ghana’s monument to neglect (Part 3)
In many communities in Ghana, hope for development is like a good breakfast but a bad supper. Projects start very enthusiastically and continue at breakneck speed, evoking great joy.
With bated breath, the beneficiary communities believe that the next big thing is about to happen for them. They think that the eel’s hope of becoming a whale is about to materialise.
But their expectations are dashed before long. The projects are halted, and their hope of landing a dream project proves to be, after all, a mere dream.
These projects are what I call Ghana’s monument to neglect, a phenomenon that is a very damning indictment of the failures of successive governments.
The first part of this article featured the $200 million Saglemi Affordable Housing Project at Prampram in the Greater Accra Region comprising 5,000 residential units.
The NDC initiated it, completed 1,500 units, and handed them over to the NPP government but none has been allocated because the NPP suspects malfeasance in the deal.
Last week, the KNUST Teaching Hospital project at Boadi, near the university’s main campus took centre stage. The project was begun in 2008 to train more health professionals, bridge the gap between the demand and supply of critically needed staff, and ease the pressure on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
But lack of funds left it abandoned for over a decade until work resumed recently. The first phase is expected to be completed in October this year.
In this final instalment, the white elephant in focus is the $2.4 million Youth Sports Centre project at Ho in the Volta Region, comprising a FIFA standard football pitch, an eight-lane athletic track, tennis, basketball, and handball courts among other facilities.
The 10,000-seater project took off in March 2018 and was due to be completed in February 2019 but, reports say it has been abandoned midway.
A press release circulated in February by the NDC said the project site had become a grazing field for cattle and a hunting ground for grasscutter.
Even bigger neglected projects abound but were not prioritised in this article, either because they have been resumed or have been shelved.
Among the resumed projects is the $180 million state-of-the-art, 500-bed capacity military hospital at Afari in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District of the Ashanti Region.
Conceived in 2008 by former President J. A. Kufuor and approved by Parliament in November the same year, the original site was Sofoline in Kumasi.
But a protracted dispute caused the location to be changed three times, from Sofoline, to Tamale after the NDC came to power in 2008, to the 37 Military Hospital before finally landing at Afari.
For six whole years, it got stalled until 2014, when the land at Afari was prepared for actual work to start in 2015. In fact, a sod was cut at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra and work began before further bickering finally relocated the facility to Afari.
The work in Accra had to be stopped but not without great cost. The contract stipulated that if the site changed, the contractor must be compensated. The company demanded about $36 million but the Government negotiated and reduced it to $19 million. The Government hesitated in paying and the contractor slowed down work, further delaying the project.
Thus, due to somebody’s thoughtless negligence, crass laxity, gross dereliction of duty, and lack of due diligence, we had to cough up a whopping $19 million in punitive cost. That money could have been used to provide eight regions with the type of youth centre designed for Ho.
Indications are that all the physical infrastructure such as the administration block, staff quarters, medical and surgical blocks, have been completed. Installation of equipment is on-going with inauguration anticipated to be in December this year.
Another category of deprioritised stalled projects deals with those which suffered a stillbirth, those that were dead on arrival. One such project that would have been a game-changer is the aborted $2.6 billion sky train project, an elevated railway system spanning 194 kilometres with a capacity to transport 400,000 passengers per year within Accra.
At independence in 1957, the population of the capital, Accra, was just 250,000 but it has exploded to its current level of over six million. The project, was, therefore, expected to decongest traffic drastically in the city, boost economic activity and reduce pollution due to unhealthy vehicular fumes.
Most of the works such as the fabrication and construction were to be done in Ghana to create about 5,000 jobs for Ghanaians during the implementation phase scheduled to begin by January 2020.
The South African investment partners, Ai SkyTrain Consortium, were said to have conducted feasibility studies at their own expense to kickstart the project, paving the way for the signing of an agreement on Thursday, November 8, 2018, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Ghana’s Railway Development Minister at the time, Mr. Joe Ghartey, signed for the country, saying: “The economics of this project are good. We are very excited about the prospects,” with President Nana Akufo Addo by his side.
All was set for the project to start in earnest, but, alas, that was not to be. Mr. Peter Amewu, the new railways minister argued that the project was too expensive.
Can you believe that after all the fanfare and economic benefits, the same government chickened out of the deal because of the cost? Are we serious? If not now, when? Some people would argue that given the dire straits in which Ghana finds herself, the new minister was right. I beg to differ.
A wealthy Nigerian, Mr. Omololu Onabanjo, who graciously hosted me while I was on a visit to his country some time ago, told me, with some anguish in his voice: “Tony, Africa has a long way to go.”
I kept pondering over his statement thinking that because he schooled in the UK for a long time, he had become so anglicised as to despise his own continent.
After a while, he came back to me and said: “Listen, I have thought about what I told you and I have realised that we don’t have anywhere to go.”
Clarifying his point, he said: “The people we are chasing are out of sight. They negotiated the development curve ahead of us a long time ago. We don’t see their back. How then can we follow them to where they have reached?”
Who said we are broke? The simple truth is that we cannot eat our cake and have it. When we do not prioritise and cut our coat according to our size, where do we expect to get the money to fund a capital-intensive but ultimately profitable venture like the sky train project?
When we waste money uselessly on emoluments, a situation worsened by bureaucratic obesity, how can we prioritise feasible projects like the Ho youth sports centre? If we scrap ex-gratia alone, we can build such centres in all the regional capitals.
If you will not do it, do not promise on your honour to do it. Do not build castles in the air. If you cannot complete it, do not start it at all and waste our scarce resources.
But, if it is a game-changer like the sky train, why chicken out? If we fail to take bold and pragmatic steps to develop our country now, we would continue to linger far behind while others reach for the stars as Mr. Onabanjo said.
Where was Singapore when Ghana was blossoming under the inspiring leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah? Now, Singapore which gained its independence in 1965, eight years after Ghana’s, is the richest country in Asia and among the world’s top ten economies in terms of its GDP per capita. It is the only Asian country to attain a higher per capita GDP than the US by every measure.
It took a combination of free enterprise, social interventions like quality mass education, affordable healthcare, cheap transportation, capital accumulation not dissipation, and strong-willed leadership by Lee Kuan Yew to transform Singapore into the economic power it is today.
One time he told his people without mincing words that he was on a mission, and anyone who would withstand him, would have himself to blame.
That is what I call leadership. Paul Kigame of Rwanda is manifesting similar traits despite the political turmoil and the disruptions of war he inherited.
With his no-nonsense style and refusal to be pushed around by any Western godfather, he is doing for his country what Nkrumah wanted to do for Ghana.
Akufo Addo must take a cue from Nkrumah and Kagame and transform Ghana into the haven she is destined to be. He must not just hire; he must begin to fire as well.
By Tony Prempeh
Contact: teepeejubilee@yahoo.co.uk
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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