Food vendors and our health

By Doreen Hammond
I have not gone near my favourite, goat meat for days now. Goat khebab used to be a delicacy for me especially, when it is spiced with pepper, and that groundnut powder mix with slices of onions.
The smoke that usually engulfed me as I stood and pointed at those I wanted was never a deterrent. Neither the look of the sharp knife used by the seller to cut the meat up in pieces as I waited impatiently to put some in my mouth was nor the fact that the khebab seller touched my khebab with bare hands as he served me.
But alas, as the saying goes koloo ko ye dwaa mli ni moo oso , translated from Ga—there is an animal in the bush that catches the fox!
The floods which caused havoc to lives and property in Accra and specifically the Kwame Nkrumah Circle – Odawna areas on October 25 , also touched animals. When the storm was over, many sheep and goats lay dead. As people began to salvage the few things left and to dry out their clothes in every available space, brisk business started – big sheep and goat carcasses were sold for GH¢5 each.
There are many restaurants , chop bars and khebab joints around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, specifically the Neoplan Station area, and though I cannot prove that the carcasses headed for these places, my imagination has been telling me so many things that is threatening my long time friendship with Khebab.
Not too long ago, I had to end a similar friendship with Hausa koko. I realised that the woman who stayed next door in an uncompleted house as a squatter, without access to potable water , no bath house and toilet was the same woman who sold the hausa koko by the road side—and she prepared the koko under terribly unhygienic conditions.
Unfortunately hers is not an isolated case. Day after day, new food vendors and hawkers appear in all parts of the city . They just put a table in the open or erect a small kiosk where they like and come out with fanciful inscriptions such as Okumtsola fast food and presto they are in business! They sell anything from fufu , banku, fried rice and chicken to waakye , and their patronage is huge.
In addition, fruit hawkers are readily available everywhere to sell. Sliced watermelons, pawpaws and pineapples are hawked in the streets and even on the sun in traffic. Sad thing is that some of these fruits are picked straight from the ground , are not washed and sliced with knives wiped but not cleaned with detergent and water.
The traffic in Accra makes it almost not practical for many workers to cook and take to work as some leave home as early as 4.30a.m.
It is a fact that many people do not cook at home but patronise restaurants , food and fruit vendors as a matter of convenience. How is the individual protected from diseases? How is the individual assured of safe food? How is this extended across the length and breadth of the country?
Who checks such food vendors whether in small or big restaurants or in the open? How many of these food vendors have the blessing of the Metropolitan and Public Health Department (MPHD) of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to sell food?
In addition to this, the operations of most of these food joints have added up to the many illegal structures that litter many parts of Accra. Who is checking this worrisome situation?
The Director of the MPHD of the AMA, Dr S.A. Boateng says the department has found it difficult to determine the number of food vendors there are in the metropolis because “ today they are there as food vendors , tomorrow they are not”.
But according to figures given by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, (FAO), there are 65,000 food vendors in the Accra metropolis.
The department is therefore trying to target 85 per cent of an estimated 65,000 food vendors for health screening which is a mandatory requirement for food handlers/vendors in the metropolis.
The department’s environmental health officers are supposed to go round the metropolis checking food handlers for health certificates which they are given after going through health screening organised by the MPHD in collaboration with the Microbiology Department of the University of Ghana Medical School.
Hitherto, the MPHD allowed food handlers to do the required laboratory tests for worm infestation and typhoid fever at any laboratory of their choice but had to stop because it realised that some of the laboratories in the metropolis were substandard ( unqualified technicians and lack of reagents) and therefore issued unreliable laboratory results.
One of the challenges of the MPHD is that it has only 150 environmental officers to check food handlers when the department needs about 500 of them as recommended by the Ministry of Local Government. This has made the job of the MPHD quite difficult.
The World Health Organisation however recommends one environmental officer for every 700 people. The Accra metropolis has a population of five million people.
According to Dr Boateng, the department also has problems with mobility presented by the lack of transport for its work. He however suggests that some staff could be trained under the National Youth Employment Programme and the National |Service scheme to augment the staff of the MPHD.
For food hawkers like the army of them we see in the streets of Accra, especially in traffic hawking, Dr Boateng says the department does not screen them because it is against the bye-laws of the assembly to hawk food in the streets. The reality however is that these hawkers are on the streets selling and they may be transmitting all sorts of diseases to the innocent consumer. There is therefore the urgent need to either screen them or stop them!
Dr Sylvester Achio, Senior Lecturer, Department of Science Laboratory Technology of the Accra Polytechnic says the risk we stand by patronising foods prepared and sold under unhygienic conditions are many.
He said that apart from the germs/micro-organisms which are likely to settle on foods when exposed to the air and cause diseases, we also need to worry about foods prepared in unhygienic conditions because of dysentery, cholera and other stomach disorders.
He explained that food prepared and bought near stagnant debris or water, toilets and gutters or general insanitary conditions are likely to contain micro-organisms and faecal contaminants like E-Coli especially when the culture of hand washing is absent.
For fruits, Dr Achio explains that when exposed to heat without their outer coating, the biochemical reactions that take place cause faster spoilage because of microbial attacks. Therefore the person who eats such fruits is likely to have health problems.
Dr Achio strongly advocates that both food handlers and consumers maintain basic hygiene including hand washing and covering food and being very particular about the environment in which they cook and buy food from.
Food vendors are serving a very important role in society. They are a savior to many workers who do not have the opportunity of eating at home and give us an option when we do not want to enter the kitchen. We also get to entertain ourselves and socialise at some of these food joints. The government therefore needs to ensure that they do as more good than harm. The situation we have now, doesn’t bode well for our health.

Guidance and counselling to the rescue

By Doreen Hammond
It took only a glance to recognise my old schoolmate Abonsan. It had been 20 long years and obviously we had both changed. But who in my secondary school in my time could ever forget that face?
He was popular for all the wrong reasons. So from the school administration to the teachers and students, right down to the “kitchen women” to the gate men and vendors on compound, Abonsan was very well known.
We were fascinated by his stylish way of walking as he glided across the compound, half of his body slanted to the ground. His shirt collar perpetually raised and in a pair of trousers, even though the prescribed attire was khaki shorts! He could fight a teacher over a simple request that his shirt should be tucked in. As naïve as we were, we cheered him on.
Abonsan was rarely seen in class. He had no notes. Carrying an exercise book was not fashionable to him, how much more a notebook. He was a nocturnal being, slept in the dormitory during classes hours and came out at night during prep, not to study but to make noise and “collect fans”.
The rumour at the time was that Abonsan’s mother was in the United Kingdom and he would join her as soon as he completed form five. He had no worries. After all he was destined for the Promised Land! Or so we thought.
The picture I was seeing now at Kantamanto was surprising. This was Abonsan at Kantamanto, with two pairs of trousers over his shoulders as he displayed another occasionally to potential customers as they walked by. When we made eye contact again, it took no time for Abonsan to melt into the crowd. It was not as if I had turned up spectacularly better myself or that I was an angel in school but Kantamanto Market? Was that the UK? And who said we needed no education to be in the UK if we wanted to get good employment over there? Or was Abonsan thinking that his mother was going to work to take care of him his entire life?
Obviously Abonsan needed some help in secondary school but who was to give it? Teachers spoke to him but it was mostly a scene of confrontation and sometimes advice and not counselling which he must have needed most.
And there was another classmate of mine, Freeman, who attended all the extra classes on the school compound. His parents ensured that he did because they wanted him to be a surgeon. According to Freeman, his parents were of the view that apart from the prestige associated with the job, he and his family will be miles away from poverty if he became a surgeon. Meanwhile, Freeman’s fear of blood was well known to his mates.
I have not had the opportunity to hear about Freeman and what became of him in the theatre if he was ever able to get there, but all didn’t look good for him even in secondary school. And all pointed at a necessity for guidance and counselling which also involves career guidance.
Guidance and Counselling is the process of helping individuals discover and develop their educational, vocational and psychological potentials.
It is meant to help the individual to achieve an optimal level of personal happiness and social usefulness.
Mrs Josephine G. Pokoo-Aikins, Director of the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the Ghana Education Service, maintains that Guidance and Counselling should start at the basic level because it is the formative years. She sees it as a process and not a one- off thing done only at one stage of a person’s life.
Unfortunately, Guidance and Counselling Units are almost nonexistent in basic schools. In most of them, they only exist in name.
This is a situation that the director finds unacceptable. For her, children at that age pick up certain habits that became very difficult to let go in adult life and that was where guidance and counselling could be of more effective help and not when things have already been ingrained.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins says it has been very difficult to get Guidance and Counselling Units at the basic school levels because of the lack of accommodation. As she puts it, “even accommodation for classrooms is a problem at the basic level how much more setting aside one for counselling”.
For effective guidance and counselling, there must necessarily be a conducive environment which includes a comfortable place, away from other people’s eyes where children would feel free to express themselves as part of counselling.
Some senior high schools have Guidance and Counselling units but lack professional, trained counsellors. The lack of professionals for the job in some schools also presents a big challenge for the unit.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins said it had been proven that schools which gave Guidance and Counselling the needed place in their institutions were making headway in ensuring discipline, for instance, and charting the career path of the students.
This was corroborated by the Headmaster of the Okuapemman SHS, Mr Felix Essah-Hienno. He said at that level of education, students were adolescents “and we all know some of the things adolescents can do.”
He said the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the school had a professional counsellor and that had contributed immensely to ensuring discipline at the school, which was purely boarding, with 2,200 students.
He recommends it strongly to other senior high schools.
Fortunately, the Ghana Education Service is looking at a policy formulated by the unit to ensure that the proper thing is done.
Among the issues discussed in the policy is that of professionalism. The policy advocates that coordinators of Guidance and Counselling units in schools should be professionals who have studied the course to the master’s level.
Also, it is proposed that coordinators who are teachers should be given time on the timetable to be able to do effective counselling.
The situation now is that such teachers do equal hours with teachers who only teach.
Mrs Pokoo–Aikins says the Government, and for that matter the GES, was doing its best to put Guidance and Counselling in its proper place for the benefit of students and the society. For instance, three weeks ago she returned from a tour financed by the Government, to all the regions, to meet with coordinators of the various units to review their performance and chart a new course.
Her challenge is that the Government does not have adequate resources to carry on with all that needs to be done in the sector.
She, therefore, appeals to non-governmental organisations for help. Specifically, to sponsor some of the unit’s programmes and provide accommodation in schools for Guidance and Counselling.
For Instance, the unit is proposing the organisation of an essay on drug abuse. The director says this essay will be beneficial because as students write about the subject they find out more and learn about the evil effects of drugs.
She is, therefore, appealing for sponsors for the programme.
But it is not all about education and career. The unit also provides services to churches and even individuals who she says could walk into any of the units in the regions and districts to seek counselling even as working adults.
There were a few other students who behaved like Abonsan in my school. Somehow, they must have realised at a point that they needed to “look sharp” so they combined play with studies at the blind side of others.
They have become teachers, lawyers, engineers and administrators etc--- useful to themselves and society. There may be more Abonsans in our senior high schools and Freemans too. Guidance and Counselling will make a difference in their lives.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

I am in love with a Hummer

By Doreen Hammond
The big things in life are fascinating. As children we had big plans and dreams, plans to buy aeroplanes once we saw one in the sky and mansions as we drove past plush mansions in the company of our parents.
Our love for big and expensive things as we grow is not necessarily a bad idea if only these expensive things could be acquired through genuine sweat and toil.
However, it so happens that most of the time, these things are achieved on the back of theft and fraud.
These days, newspaper pages are full of pictures and announcements of wanted people who are accused of defrauding their employers and others. Publications of stories of people we have admired from afar only because of the big things they own, but who are later convicted for drug trafficking are also in the library.
The accountant is aiming at a two-storey house while the accounts clerk wants to put up a three-storey version of the same house. The chief executive is thinking of getting a 6-cylinder vehicle while the general manager is frantically scheming to buy a V8.
Since most of us do not earn enough to support such grandiose acquisitions, we end up dipping our hands into coffers which do not belong to us.
The result invariably is normally constantly looking over the shoulders, dismissal from work, long prison sentences, and sometimes people becoming fugitives of the law.
In the case of some up-and-coming entrepreneurs, this could spell the doom of their otherwise flourishing businesses as they invest capital in the posh cars and mansions to the detriment of their businesses. We seem to have thrown away one of the basic teachings at home: Cut your coat according to your cloth.
Acquiring nice and big things in life is not a crime, but going to lengths to acquire them, sometimes through foul or dubious means, is the issue here.
I have come across friends clutching three of the most expensive phones in vogue, while their rents have remained outstanding for months. Others drive some of the flashiest cars in town while their children’s school fees remain unpaid. Misplaced priorities?
While in the UK recently, my perception about cars changed completely. For instance it took me three days in London to spot a Range Rover Sport. Throughout my two-week stay, I never saw a Hummer or any of those American fuel guzzlers that adorn our streets here in Ghana.
Most of the cars in London, and I’m told, other parts of Europe, are the small cars designed to move people from one place to another. Therefore cars like the Nissan March, Peugeot 106, the Renault Clio, the Morris Minor and such other small vehicles dominate their roads, while we drive the Toyota Sequoia V8, the Infiniti V8, the Nissan Armada, the Escalade and the Hummers. It appears the in thing now is the bigger the car, the richer and more respected the owner.
Is it not ironic that a country which is just wriggling its way out of HIPC and must still carry bowl in hand to our benefactors who we feel more comfortable calling development partners, should show so much affluence and crass pomposity in the midst of our squalor and poverty?
I mean schools under trees, Sodom and Gomorrah, lack of potable drinking water, no toilets in homes, dirty markets, limited access to health facilities, and frequent appeals by mothers in the media for money to enable children undergo surgery in order to live; an indication of a poor social welfare system.
Have we sat down to reflect for once, the dire consequences on us if our donor friends (the real word, not development partners) decide to also invest their wealth in such vain and mundane ventures and forget about us?
This brings to the fore the issue of our choice of cars. What should inform the average Ghanaian in his attempt to choose a car from the market? Must it be a used or new car and what are the factors to consider? (Note that we are looking at the average Ghanaian and not the self- actualised tycoon or big-time businessmen and women whose choice is more or less a statement to announce to society that they have arrived at the top.)
The emphasis is on the average worker who just needs a means of transport to move from one place to another just because of an unreliable public rail and bus transport system.
I asked Mr Francis J. Amegayibor, General Manager (sales) of Silver Star Auto Limited for advice on choosing a car.
“You are better off with a new car”, he thinks.
He buttresses his point with the fact that new cars have the benefit of a warranty, are less problematic and maintenance cost is lower.
Mr Amegayibor says it is necessary to consider maintenance cost and the budget available in making that decision.
He says although used cars can be bought at cheaper prices, they are more accident prone and are more likely to break down.
To him, prestige and social status does not influence his choice of a car, his main concern is durability.
Mr Kwesi Blankson, an exporter of used Korean cars at Achimota does not support the idea of buying a new car in Ghana.
He is of the view it does not make economic sense to invest heavily in a new car because of the nature of our roads which would not make it last. For him, buying a used car and changing it after every five years is a better deal.
Mr Leslie Sackeyfio is a chartered insurer and the owner of a pre-owned Toyota |Corolla which he bought because “I wanted to use a Toyota and the budget could buy a home-used one”.
He said most of the new cars being sold on the market have smaller engines and are not as comfortable as the home-used Toyota.
In making the decision, Mr Sackeyfio had certain specifications in mind. He made sure the car had a fitted audio system to save him the trouble of the system being removed by thieves and also removing the face each time he parks and leaves the car unattended. He prefers an automatic transmission because he has been told that it protects the engine.
Another factor Mr Sackeyfio considered in making his decision is the availability of spare parts. He believes that most of the cars on the market now, even though new, cannot be used extensively over a long time and that the state of the roads on which one drives daily should inform our choice of vehicle.
Above all, he thinks that the cost of maintenance/servicing in spite of extensive use should be compatible with salary and maintenance allowance. Getting a new car is Mr Sackeyfio’s wish but he emphasises “not just any new car”.
It seems that buying a car is akin to choosing a wife and individual choices would continue to vary.
It is true that we earn our own income and can, therefore, decide to spend it anyhow we fancy. But, we should also consider that we live in a society where most people can hardly put food on the table. How about creating the right balance between satisfying our ego and comfort and contributing to the welfare of society?
Like putting a bowl of food on that hungry woman’s table, or giving a token to that little boy who needs just a few cedis to remain in school.
The next time you fall in love with a Hummer or any of those cars whose price can conveniently buy a three-bedroom house, ask yourself: Do I really need this car? Can I fuel and maintain this vehicle? Who am I out to impress? For what shall it profit a man if he sits high up in the sky and looks down at his brother starving to death?

• Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

A case of two chickens

By Doreen Hammond

In the freezer of a supermarket are stocked two different kinds of chicken. One is well packaged, with the name of the country and farm of origin, among other important information required by the consumer, boldly written on it. It is well labelled with expiry date, weight, nutritional values and an indication that it is a broiler.
Next to it is the other chicken, just in a polythene bag that is tied at the end, with no information on it. In order to know about it I had to ask the sales girl, who replied, “It is local”.
My additional enquiries about expiry date, nutritional values and weight yielded the response, “It was brought in only three days ago”. But from which farm, she did not know. For prices, the well-packaged imported chicken was GH¢10.00 while the locally manufactured one with no information went for GH¢15.00.
On the shelves of the supermarket were different kinds of products from different countries. That was expected because ours is a country which encourages free trade and manufactures little.
There were different kinds of bottled drinks. Among them was one with colourful pictures of something that looked like fruits, with a label that had the printing so tiny it would take a witch to read.
It had a Ghana Standards Board mark though and expiry date marked with a ball point pen, two mobile phone numbers, also scribbled with pen but no manufacturer’s address. The bottle had a cover but once you held it up, the drink started spilling.
This scenario generally replicates itself in almost anything one can think of — from textiles to shoes to plastic items to food products. Yet as Ghanaians, we are supposed to patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Our attempt to encourage the wearing of made-in-Ghana clothes, known as batik and tie and dye, suffered a setback. Although it caught on so well and was so much patronised, it seemed we were all wearing uniforms because of the lack of variety. This coupled with the fabric being named after CK Mann’s popular song Adwoa Yankee has since caused some loss in patronage.
Somehow, most of our local seamstresses and tailors who sew at affordable prices don’t seem to get it right; you may have darts above the breast, kissing pockets behind your trousers, sleeves so long past the arm and lapels as large as elephant ears.
The sad thing is, the customer has to go to and fro the tailor’s shop because collection time is never adhered to. Many a customer has been sent home by such seamstresses and tailors in tears with clothing which made them look like masqueraders and wondering whose measurements were used for them — Money down the drain, no customer satisfaction, no redress.
Give a Ghanaian carpenter an order for furniture, even a similar one you have seen at his shop, and see what happens. Either he makes something different for you or he takes part of the money to buy materials for the job and starts playing hide and seek with you. First, he will say he has not been well and then you don’t see him at the shop for a while but picks your call and then he moves on to not picking calls from you at all. Until you do something drastic, that may be the end of that furniture you ordered and your money.
Talking about standards; do we have standards at all? If we did, why would a tourist see an elephant carving, place an order for two of the same thing only to go for his order and one looks more like a deer than the elephant he ordered? The lackadaisical attitude of our artisans to work makes it very difficult to deal with them and trust them.
In spite of our attempts as a country to encourage the use of locally made goods/products, there have been a number of challenges. Our challenges have been with packaging, pricing, maintaining a standard quality and therefore confidence in the product, and our attitude to work. Apart from some who may (in some cases erroneously) think that everything imported or foreign is better than the locally made, others who would prefer locally made goods are frustrated by these problems.
Studies have shown that packaging plays a very important role in moving consumers to buy a product. It even advertises the product. Well-packaged items give the potential consumer a sense of quality. Poorly packaged items suggest the quality of the product itself may be suspect. How can you, for instance, convince yourself that the ground red pepper (cayenne) that you have bought from the market only tied in a polythene bag has not been mixed with the seed of avocado just to maximise profit?
The importance of packaging is well understood by a few companies like Blue Skies, Neat fufu, Darko Farms and Nkulenu, but the general situation doesn’t look good. Buy a pack of a certain Ghanaian-made biscuit and find yourself struggling for minutes trying to open the wrap in order to get a bite.
You take the foreign one, spot the clearly marked “where to open”, spot the red thread and save yourself the trouble; secure yet easy to open.
Buy a pack of plantain chips and risk being pricked by staple pins! That is the ingenious way the manufacturer has chosen to seal the pack.
Pricing also plays a major role in influencing patronage of locally made products as far as the competition is concerned. The consumer may be so in love with locally made goods but would your purse allow you to stand by a well-packaged chicken at GH¢10 and still pick the locally made one for GH¢15.00 just because you are a Ghanaian and you want your compatriot to make some money?
Why should we be complaining that Ghanaians are buying imported chicken and not the locally produced ones? Who would not prefer a well-packed, fresh juicy moderate chicken to an imported one? But is that what we see in our shops?
The local industries have been genuinely complaining for years about lack of access to credit, high interest rates, lack of Government subsidies and unfair competition from heavily subsidised imports. These are genuine complaints which require prompt redress for the promotion of local industries and therefore our economy.
But what are the industries also doing for themselves? What are they doing to change the little things like their attitude to work and the inherent waste within most of our production chain, which is not a matter of Government policy? How serious have they been with delivering on time and gaining the trust of customers? Why would they manufacture something locally and give it a foreign label or just pack an imported product in a pack and put their label on it? Is it the issue of not believing in what they produce?
What is insulting to the Ghanaian consumer is that in most cases products for export are treated differently to meet international standards while those for local consumption are treated with contempt.
When it comes to advertising to create awareness and sustain interest in products, there is aggressive advertising of foreign imports while most of our local manufacturers just pray and fast over their products and expect that they will be bought.
Just tune in to any of our Television stations and witness the aggressive advertising on imported rice and even Indomie, while most people have no idea where to buy local rice, even if one decided to do so for nationalism sake, in spite of the stones/pellets in it and all.
We may love Made-in-Ghana goods to bits and may be very patriotic but how far are we, as consumers and customers, ready to go with that love in the face of the poor quality of most of our locally made products and the availability of cheaper, higher quality alternatives?
Can’t the same authorities who keep appealing to us to patronise our home-made goods, in a similar measure impress on our local manufacturers the need to show a modicum of respect to us by manufacturing to some basic quality and standards? After all, our elders say : when you advise the cat you must advise the stinking fish also.
The Americans love their Ford just as much as the Japanese love their Toyota because at the end of the day they get quality for their money.
The bottom line is: It is good to patronise locally made goods on condition that they can compete with foreign ones in terms of quality, price and packaging. For at the end of the day, it all boils down to getting value for ones money and that is where patriotism should end.
We may argue that “small, small we will get there”, but what efforts are we making to get there? And is fifty something years not enough to get to any destination, even if we were crawling? In any case our competitors will not stop and wait for us!
Spending hard-earned money on any commodity whose only value is that it was manufactured by an indigene while it lacks quality and aesthetic value would be taking patriotism a bit too far and taflatse, crossing over to the land of no reason.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

Ghana: Gateway or dumping ground?

By Doreen Hammond
The Ghanaian is fascinated by appellations. This is no secret. So everybody is a Togbe, Nana, Nii or Agyeman. This may be without recourse to the fact that the person has not done anything for even his immediate community, not to talk of town.
Perhaps the only group of people whose penchant for appellations surpasses that of the Ghanaian is the Nigerian. It is only in Nigeria that one person could be addressed as Professor, Dr Dr Engineer Lawyer Chief. No wonder we are not only neighbours but also cousins and we are learning a lot from each other.

Our love for appellations transcends the individual to the national. Hence we have Ghana being first in so many things. First Black African country south of the Sahara to win independence, first to declare HIPC and now Gateway to the continent Africa.

Not that it hurts anybody if we decide to indulge ourselves in this unnecessary game of naming ourselves as almost the best in everything even if the reality is different.

The story is told of how the Nigerians quickly dubbed their country as the destination in apparent response to Ghana’s claim of being the gateway. Of course it is all part of the banters we must engage in despite our dire poverty and seemingly hopeless circumstances. As the saying goes, yesu koraa ye gyae hem; even as we weep we pause occasionally to blow our noses.

But the issue of dumping of all manner of goods in our country under the guise of free trade or if you like liberalisation is certainly not a laughing matter.

Though it may be difficult to put a date on when the practice of importing used foreign products into the country started, the practice gained currency in the 1990s and has continued in earnest until date.

The typical Ghanaian, never in short supply of humour, euphemistically refers to such goods as Eurocarcass, the short form of European carcass. For clothing, the name is obroni wawu, literally meaning the white man is dead.

The goods are imported from anywhere one can think of with Korea now being a major supplier even though it started mostly with our European and American friends.

The type of items imported varies. They range from sound systems, television sets, fridges, wheelchairs, books, clothing, toys, rags, cooking utensils, footwear to chamber pots. It is quite difficult to understand why we have gone to the extent of buying and using a pre- owned chamber pot !

In recent years, electronic gadgets like computers and their accessories have come to form a major part of these imports.

The health implications for using used underwear and other personal clothing have been highlighted over the period, leading to a supposed ban on this category of imports. As to whether the ban is being effected is a question we all need to address as a people, though on my last visit to Kantamanto a week ago, I saw these items including panties boldly displayed for sale.
Another type of goods whose continuous dumping on us has a serious and negative impact are used fridges, air conditioners, microwave ovens and television sets.

What is compounding the problem is that in the host country, these things are considered unfit for use and hazardous to health and disposal is a problem. Hence, the prospective buyer is not left with a choice as to selecting the good ones and leaving the rest.

So the typical Ghanaian importer goes for a 40- footer container full of television sets and fridges and after it has been cleared at the port, he opens the container to find that about 50 per cent of the items are not useable.

While he may have helped the German, the Italian and the Koreans to clear their borla (garbage), all that he would have done to us would have been compounding our already precarious waste disposal problems and adding on the attendant environmental problems.

According to documents provided by Mrs Angelina Tutuah-Mensah, Deputy Director of Public Affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency, on ozone layer protection, emissions from these items like refrigerators etc. affect the environment adversely. Such emissions contain substances containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.

Some of them have been discarded from their places of origin because they contain CFCs which are commonly used as coolants. Because of the harmful effects of CFCs to the environment, they are being phased out.

The EPA document advises that we should buy fridges which are ozone friendly and that we should pay attention to the manufacturers information needed to make a wise choice. But is that what we are doing?

Hardi is a used refrigerator importer in Taifa. He says that when his container of fridges arrives, he sells the bulk of them untested, that way prices are very affordable. However, after the bulk has been bought, he now calls in a fridge repairer to test and repair those which are not working. He sells those which are unserviceable to fridge repairers who remove parts to service customer’s fridges. What eventually happens to the unserviceable is outside his purview.
For Hardi, CFCs are no consideration in his importation business and sales.

Mr Eric Nyefre, a waiter and a proud owner of a pre-owned fridge and television set says that his only reason for buying those pre-owned items was price. He explains that he could not afford to buy a new fridge and television set though he would have preferred to do so.

While a used table-top fridge goes for about GH¢150, the new one sells for about GH¢ 400.
The high energy consumption of most of these items coupled with their relatively shorter lifespan makes these second-hand goods not cost-effective in the long term.

The government, through Ghana’s Energy Commission, the regulator of the energy sector recently announced that from January 1, 2013, it will completely ban used refrigerators and air-conditioners from coming into the country.
The Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr. Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, who made the announcement said used television sets and electric irons would also be banned from the country. For the Energy Commission, its concern is electronic waste and high energy consumption by some of these used electronic gadgets.

Though there are plans to ban these things in the future, what prevents us from making the ban effective now? We should not lose sight of the fact that the impact of these hazardous waste cannot be postponed till a later date and that is the more reason the sooner the ban and its enforcement, the better.

Apart from the health and environmental implications, it is also an eye sore to see disused fridges etc packed in front of shops along our roads.

Though there may be a few reasons justifying the importation of these things like the relative cheapness which has made it possible for most people within the low-income bracket to own their own TV sets and fridges, the overwhelming negative impact on our health and environment should inform our decision.

To the importer, once he is making the big bucks, he might not be bothered about environmental and health issues but that is why governments exist to provide protection and security for the citizenry. And this includes protection from avoidable diseases and a sound and healthy environment.

We may be a gateway but that does not mean we should be a dumping ground. We should close our gates to garbage, especially those that will eventually kill us.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

Our friend the mortuary man

Our Friend The Mortuary Man
A group of 10 mourners stood at the gate of the mortuary where they had gone to check whether the body of their beloved “was being kept well”.

They had been waiting for the mortuary man for a while and were getting impatient but could not leave because their mission had not been accomplished. The mourners had learnt that if you do not “see” the mortuary man, the body of your beloved will not get good treatment. So they waited.

When the mortuary man finally emerged, removed his gloves and stretched out his hand to greet them, they pretended that they had not seen his hand and started looking at the trees around. He was used to that behaviour and ignored what normally would be regarded as rude.

Rather the mortuary man assured them that everything was okay. When he invited them to come in and see their beloved for themselves, only two of the mourners gathered the courage to do so! Fear had grabbed the legs of the other eight; They'd rather not see the body.

One vocation in our society which seems so steeped in mystery is the work of the mortuary man. Though very little is known about the work of this special group of people, several stories are told about their mystical powers. Some even claim that they talk to the dead and that in some cases where the souls of the dead refuse to be at rest, chants from the mortuary man calms them down!

The general perception about the mortuary man seems to be borne out of our fear and or reverence for the dead. It is related to the thought that anyone who touches and does things with the dead must not be entertained by the living. With this kind of thinking it is only logical to conclude that any group of persons dealing with the dead on a daily basis must possess supernatural powers in equal measure, if not more.

Mortuary men are, therefore, people we do not like to go too close to; we would rather admire them from a distance. The mere sight of these health workers sends shivers down the spines of many and it is usually an experience most people would rather pray passes over them like the biblical cup in the case of the Christ.

But the world being what it is; death is part of life. It happens that once in a while, whether we like it or not, we come face to face with the mortuary man at the loss of a relation.

It is during these times that the mortuary man, who is always at the fringes of society, calls the shots and throws his weight about in the presence of the rich and powerful. After all, he is performing an important job which few people would dare to do.

Strongman is the name of a popular mortuary man at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital's mortuary in Accra. He has been doing this job since he was 30. At 56 now, his job description has been to remove bodies for post mortem to the theatre and for embalmment, pack bodies into the fridges, pick up bodies from the wards to the morgue and cleaning.

Very well built in stature, Strongman used to be a fisherman but when fishing was not putting adequate food on his table, he left to work as a porter at the then Ghana Food Distribution Corporation . He says his job as a porter was also not too rewarding financially, so when his sister got him the job as a mortuary man, he obliged.

Before he started working in the mortuary, Strongman had heard tales of how such workers use some spiritual powers but for him, “I only do this job with the help of God”. He said that contrary to the notion that mortuary men had to drink a lot of alcohol in order to do the job, he was an occasional drinker and does not drink because of the job.

His family does not treat him differently from other members but “sometimes it is rather some outsiders who shun me”. He likes his job, teaches others to do it by apprenticeship but says the salary is not encouraging at all.

Mr Alex Moffatt who has been doing the job of a prosector at the same mortuary for 22 years is a middle school form four leaver. He was trained on the job to open up bodies for pathologists to do the post mortem. After that he puts the organs back into the bodies and stitches them up.

He also started the job in the morgue as a cleaner, became a mortuary attendant and then a mortuary man before his transfer to the theatre to work as a prosector. Mr Moffatt, who is also a pastor at the Christian Forces Church in Mamprobi is happy with his job because he believes “God wants me to learn something”.

But he is not satisfied with the salary which he puts at about GH ¢300 a month in spite of the risks involved. He talks about occasional cuts from the surgical blade, pricks from the needle during work and susceptibility to diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cholera. In spite of these, the government pays them no risk allowance. His hope was that the Single Spine Salary Structure would address these concerns, but so far there have been no signs of such redress.

Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, a Pathologist, explains that mortuary men include those category of staff trained as prosectors to open up bodies for post-mortem examination.

They have been trained on the job in the different ways to open the bodies, dependent on what the problem was and the different procedures that might be necessary for the completeness of the postmortem. Prof Akosa describes them as “very necessary for the work in the morgue”.

Contrary to the situation in other societies like the UK where mortuary men are trained to the post-graduate level, our mortuary men go through what the affable Professor refers to as the “University of Hard Knocks”. They are mostly cleaners in health facilities who metamorphose into mortuary men.

At the La General Hospital Morgue for instance, Madam Margaret Abossey- Tawiah, an environmental officer of the Ministry of Health who is the head of the mortuary explains that the four mortuary men were cleaners who were drafted into the mortuary. She said their training has been limited to short training in how to embalm bodies by an official from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

Apart from the lack of structured training, Madam Abbosey-Tawiah said remuneration for the mortuary man was nothing to write home about though they receive some motivation allowances from the hospital.

She explained that since none of the four could read or write, she was saddled with all the paper work associated with the job. She was of the view that in future, the authorities should draft into the unit, people who could read and write.

According to Prof Akosa, the idea of a school for training mortuary men with a curriculum in Ghana was mooted by the Ghana Health Service years ago but nothing has happened.

He said a full syllabus was prepared for mortuary attendants’ training by the Human Resource Division of the Ghana Health Service for a diploma course and a degree programme like it is in the UK. As things stand, there is no qualification for mortuary men and also no structure in terms of their career progression.

Mr George Dankyi, Manager of the Korle Bu Hospital’s Mortuary advocates strongly for a school to train mortuary men. He is of the view that such structured formal training would improve health and safety (especially in the area of preventing infections), improve human relations, overall efficiency and recognition and appreciation of the work of the mortuary man.

“If we were doing things right , we would not carry bodies in a taxi in one minute and carry bread for sale in the same taxi the next minute. Handling the dead is something that should be done by people in the field for health reasons” , he explains.

Mr Dankyi thinks that a school for the training of mortuary men should attract Senior High School leavers for training into the field for more effective work.

Even though present salaries for mortuary men are low, Mr Dankyi says a number of people approach him frequently for employment in the mortuary because of the “thank yous” relations offer in a bid to get their bodies well treated.

Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, Director of Human Resource Development at the Ministry of Health recognises the need for some formalised and structured training for mortuary men but said it was not being done at the moment and that it was something that the ministry would have to consider.

He said that such an idea, if implemented, could attract younger people into the profession which seems inundated by the not so young.

For now, mortuary men are not well motivated because they are not well paid and not generally recognised and appreciated for their work by the larger society. Also, they have no proper career progression since most of them come initially as cleaners and undergo very little training, if any at all. It therefore becomes difficult for them to transit to becoming qualified prosectors.

Though the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the La General Hospital Mortuary and a few others in the capital were the focus of this write-up, there is nothing to suggest that mortuary men in other mortuaries across the country may be faring better.

The bottom line is that the way we have shunned this all-important aspect of our health care leaves much to be desired. If anything at all, it should be at the back of the minds of policy makers and the larger society that the services of mortuary men are one that we will all require sooner or later and the earlier they ensured that we have well- trained and motivated mortuary men in the country to assist pathologists as obtains in most civilised societies, the better it will be for us. We cannot have a holistic, quality health care system if we ignore the mortuary man - everybody's friend at last.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

Go straight, no bend no curve

Go straight, no bend no curve

By Doreen Hammond

At the South Gate of the Gatwick Airport in London stood Kwaku Manu in confusion, his eyes darting around like a clock as everyone passed him by in different directions, bound for different destinations.

Kwaku was to catch the Gatwick express to Seven Sisters where he was to meet someone to send him to the sister he was visiting in Enfield Town. The problem for him now was where to catch the train. The speed at which people passed him by and how focused they looked as they walked away made him unable to gather confidence to ask anyone for help as is the practice he was used to back home. But time was not on his side and his luggage was weighing him down so he had to do something fast.

Fortunately, he saw an information desk and walked there to find out where to locate the station.

“Where can I catch the Gatwick Express to Seven Sisters?" he asked.

The gentleman behind the desk pointed at the big signpost right where he had been standing in confusion and said, “There, Gatwick Express; big signboard, surely you couldn’t have missed it!"

But Kwaku Manu had missed it! He had concentrated on looking at the people moving up and down the station with the intention to ask questions rather than looking out for information on signposts.

Adoley’s ordeal was not any better. She arrived at the University of Exeter for a course and had to find her way to the hostel where she was to lodge. She was handed a map at the porter’s office to do so and that sent shivers down her spine! By the time she finally made meaning of the map and settled in her room, she had spent over an hour to get to the hostel which was not even five minutes from where she was given the map! The cold had dealt with her.

Certainly, Kwaku Manu and Adoley have something in common. They come from a place where signs of any type-- signposts, signboards, road signs and call signs; be they made of wood , metal or plastic ; carrying information of directions or addresses or rules and regulations, dos and don'ts, do not mean much. Not only do they come from Ghana but their kind appears to be many in this country!

The lack of importance we attach to signs have had serious consequences on our development as a people and continues to pose risks even to our lives. On the Accra – Kumasi road, as well as other roads where major construction works are in progress, drivers have been left on their own to figure out where to pass. There are no signs informing the driver as to where to pass and where not to. There are no signs showing where to branch off into Taifa, for instance; you just figure it out. Too bad if you can't; the result is the constant chaos and sometimes accidents on our roads.

Vehicles which break down en route are left on the road without warning triangles and motorists reach the scene too late to notice the tree branches scattered on the road as warning. Sometimes, the results of such inaction have been fatal; loss of lives on our roads.

A driver approaching a clearly marked zebra crossing rather decides to change the gear from third to fifth speed and approaches pedestrians honking and sometimes goes to the extent of putting on his headlights! Is that meant to frighten pedestrians or what?

We have not properly named and numbered our streets in a manner that would make them easily identifiable. If we finally get our Ambulance Service running as it should be, how would we get them to easily reach our homes to pick a woman in labour, for instance, to the hospital? How do we give the Fire Service precise directions to our home when it is on fire and time is of the essence? Even though our postal system seems to be gradually losing its role to new modes of communication like the e-mail and cell phone, the pain of many who have lost the opportunity to attend job interviews because letters lay in their boxes without their knowledge are still fresh to them. We cannot have letters easily delivered to us at home because we don’t have proper home addresses.

Most developed countries are now using the GPRS (Tomtom) to find locations. This is less time-consuming and stressful; unlike the merry go round we tend to do here. It is true we are a developing country but at the rate we are going, when would we be able to use such a facility since we would need to feed the equipment with addresses to enable it direct us to our destination? The sad thing is nothing and nobody appears to be doing anything about it.

Try visiting a friend for the first time and he gives you the direction of a big tree under which people often sit to play draught. Once there, you are to ask for Don’t mind your wife chop bar where you are to ask for a man known in the area as “Original”. Original is supposed to hold your hand and take you to the house you are looking for. So if on that day those people who play the draught do not come for the game under the tree, and “Original” decides to be absent, what happens? Your guess is as good as mine.

It is not as if we do not have signs at all. We do, even to the extent that some of them obstruct our vision at junctions and intersections. We seem to see these signs as more of decorative pieces than for the purpose of providing information and directions. So in a banking hall, for instance, where it is boldly written “Queue here”, we still have people coming to ask where to queue. Could this attitude be related to our low literacy rate? That may not entirely be the case because Adoley was a university student and Kwaku had completed senior high school.

Government after government has made pronouncements on how Ghana is the gateway to Africa and how tourism is being promoted to be one of the country’s major foreign exchange earners. Government delegations after delegations have embarked on trips to woe investors into the country.

But what are we inviting investors to? For investors to maintain their interest in a country, certain things must be in place. Directional signs are certainly one of them. The average visitor to any of our cities must, with the help of a city map and other directional signs, navigate himself about with little fuss as pertains in all truly gateway countries. If we do not properly label our country, we may succeed in bringing some investors into the country alright, but the difficulty they will face in moving about here due to the lack of proper signs may make Ghana anything but a gateway to any destination.

Directional signs are vital for the smooth movement of both locals and visitors and all efforts must be made to ensure that they are where they ought to be and people know how to use them properly. From the way things are going in this country, it may not require a prophet to predict that soon, stopping strangers to ask for directions would be deemed a nuisance.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

Praise ye great and famous

By Doreen Hammond
The year was 1975, a young Ghanaian boxer had annexed a World Featherweight Boxing title, the first in the annals of the nation’s history and an excited country was in celebration mode.
The young David Kotei also known as Poison, had a busy schedule to follow after a tumultuous welcome at the capital’s airport on his arrival. He was met by state functionaries and people from all walks of life. He also had to present the championship belt to the then head of state. This was followed by a nation- wide tour amid songs composed in his honour. My favourite of these songs was Senior Eddie Donkor’s Nea Okom gye ne omie.
Barely a year later, on November 6, 1976, when the heat of the celebrations had died down, DK the darling boy, was billed to defend the title against Danny Lopez, in front of a partisan Ghanaian crowd. How the belt was wrenched from the fists of DK, amid weeping and wailing by Ghanaians and his subsequent demise into oblivion is now steeped in Ghanaian boxing history. Did we learn any lessons from Kotei’s fall as a people?
In 1983, Ghana became the first African country to win the African cup of nations for a record fourth time. Instead of thinking of how to improve on this feat we chose to bask in its glory. Thus, while we chose to be busy touting our achievement, Egypt was busy winning more of the trophies. Since 1983 we have not tasted victory in that continental show piece while Egypt has over taken us and won it seven times and still counting.
In 1991, a Ghanaian youth team mesmerised the world and annexed the FIFA Soccer World Youth Cup. One would have expected that it was going to be the beginning of further successes in that level of the game. Alas, that was to be the only time. In 1994, Ghana took the world by storm during the Olympic Games by being the first African team to get to the quarter finals in football. Reaching the quarter finals, a feat then unattained by any African country, we wallowed in our glory and could not advance further.
Even the voices of Ghanaian commentators who kept harping that it was the first time an African team was going that far, was enough to let the boys feel they had arrived and arrived they had. Come the next tournament, the Nigerian team went all out and won the cup!
Following these tournaments, a Ghanaian super kid was unearthed and touted as the next Pele. What happened to his career and that of his other colleagues who were equally brimming with so much potential at the time, is there for all to see. I am talking about the Alex Opokus, Nii Odartey Lampteys, Emmanuel Duahs and the Kofi Mbias. Yet their counterparts from Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world went on to become class acts like the Ronaldinhos, Ronaldos, Inniestas, Fabio Cannavaros etc. and are still shining.

Let us face it, apart from Abedi Pele, Tony Yeboah, and Sammy Osei Kufour, most Ghanaian youth players with a lot of potential who get drafted into top European teams hardly stay at the top flight for any length of time. Two cars, two houses and some hundred thousand dollars is enough to last one for a life time and so it ends there.

The story is not very different in the boxing sphere where apart from Azumah Nelson, other Ghanaian boxers have exhibited a lack of staying power. Defeats to Scorpion Ofosu, Nana Yaw Konadu, Ike Quartey and in more recent times Ike Quartey, Kofi Jantuah, Joshua Clottey and Joseph Abgeko, point to a worrying development.

What makes the Manny Pacquios, Evander Holyfields, and the De La Hoyas, stay at the top for so long? Similarly what makes the Paul Shole the Ryan Giggs’ Fabio Cannavaros, Salgados and the Palo Maldinis play at the top for decades while our boys fizzle away after two seasons in a Turkish or Greek league?
Is the case different with our business tycoons? Do they also realise their full potential and look at the market beyond Ghana? Or are they happy with a few cars and wives, while the Abramovichs, Bill Gates and Dangote’s acquire private jets and yachts? How come that no Ghanaian is listed in Africa’s wealthiest 50 people? Yet, the country is said to be very rich in so many resources.



The big question to ask is: is this lack of staying power in the Ghanaian genes, psychological, cultural or what?
Seems there is a cultural dimension to it. I am talking of the way we over hail these people even before they have found their feet at the top. Such unwarranted praises enter their heads and while they remain in cloud nine, the exigencies of the game bring them back to reality.
Take the case of Asamoah Gyan, a young player with a potential to grow. He scored three goals most of them through penalty kicks at the last world cup. His outings in Europe have seen him having a stint at Udinese and Rennes club in France. His performances at both clubs were nothing to write home about.
The man moves to Sunderland where he has just scored ten goals and already we are comparing him to accomplished players like Samuel Eto, Leo Messi, Pele etc. Ghanaian journalists are already speculating a move for him to Manchester United knowing very well that it is nothing outside the figment of their imagination. How do we expect him to develop the mind set to continue to improve when the perception is that he has already arrived?
Though it is good to praise, over praising has never helped anybody. It brings about complacency and then what follows is a sinking into oblivion of the once held high champion. Ghanaians can hail you to your fall, those at the top beware!

Noise Noise everywhere--any help?

By Doreen Hammond
It is 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I have just alighted from a trotro and I’m entering the central business area. I just leaped to get across a choked gutter filled to the brim with polythene material and the rotten left-overs of whatever one can think of. My mission? To get the family’s stock of necessities for the week ahead. I am at a marketplace, call it market Y, though in truth it is identical to most of our markets in Accra and other urban centres in the country.

The stench emanating from this market is just unbearable. In addition to the pungent smell is the muddy ground that I and the hundreds of other visitors have to navigate as we go about our business. Clearly, this market was not designed as such from the beginning; it must definitely have been an afterthought, something which just sprang up. Another certainty is that this market has not seen any facelift for as long as it has been called a market.

As I meander my way about, almost choking, I observe our mothers, sisters and wives, some carrying babies of varying ages, sitting by their wares in the stench and muddy ground. Right ahead of me is a waste disposal container that is heavily overburdened with rubbish. Like the market women who have lost any hope of ever operating in a decent environment, the container looked resigned to its fate, not knowing when next it would be relieved of its foul contents.

In front of me is a tax collector busily collecting the daily tolls from the market women and kayayei (female porters), obviously unperturbed by the fact that people operating in such an environment rather need to be paid some compensation! Ideally, they owe nobody even a dime!

Ahead of me is a dilapidated van mounted with a public address system advertising a herbal product interspersed with loud music. Opposite the herbal medicine vendor is a small bus terminal from where another public address system is blurting the destination of vehicles: Korle Bu, Kaanesh- Odorkor, Circle, Suhum- Nsawam , Spintex etc.

Fifty metres ahead is a solo church operating loud speakers bleating out a gospel song, Okramanfunuba. A microphone- wielding soul-searcher with a tattered King James Version of the Holy Book (hemust have been doing this work for quite a long time) tucked under his armpit appeals to passersby to cast their bread upon the waters……

All these are complemented by the shrill voices of market women trying to outdo each other as they attract customers to their wares. Commercial vehicle drivers carrying passengers and foodstuffs to various parts of the city entertain themselves with persistent blowing of their horns, the louder they blew, the better they felt, it seemed, adding to the chaos in the market.

The one-and-half hours spent in the market was like hell as the stench, combined with utmost noise had the potential to make one lose it. Thankfully, I managed to hop unto a bus heading back home. As soon as the bus took off, there popped up, a preacher on wheels who continued to admonish us to seek the face of the Lord and ended up selling a concoction to those who cared. He managed to draw the passengers into what he actually came to do by shouting Amen, Amen! Hallelujah!

The testimonies he gave about the concoction were too good to be true; with such a wonder drug capable of curing every illness under the sun, who needs a doctor? As soon as he got off the bus, the driver turned on his radio, and from under my seat I could hear the vibration of loud sounds from some wooden speakers, the type we see at funerals these days. The volume had been turned up so loud as to make the call of the mate for payment inaudible.

I dropped by at the salon to fix my hair on my way home and apart from the owner’s TV set which was on , a small radio was also on with volume raised so high! Adjacent to the salon was a music recording studio which was at full blast. When I asked what was happening there, the response I got was “Oh, they sell CDs”… Since when did the selling of CDs give one the licence to make noise?

My hair done, I decided to make the rest of the journey home on foot only to encounter a convoy of speeding vehicles, all touting their horns. My enquiry revealed that the convoy was escorting a departed colleague to the cemetery! So why the rush and excitement if they were only on their way to bury the dead? I questioned aloud, not expecting an answer from any one though.

Thank God I’m home now. After dinner I thought I could lie down and consume myself in what I call “inflection”, “thinking about myself”. Alas, it is a Saturday night and we are all expected to be part of Prophet Odeneho, Bishop Nyame Ba and Pastor Mente Gyae’s huhudios all-night vigils, which cross we the residents must bear on a weekly basis. With the loud music and speaking in tongues into microphones complemented by three drinking bars attacking from all flanks of my room, I could do nothing close to sleep before the cocks took over at dawn. Another sleepless night as usual as I grudgingly gathered my wretched body out of bed but not out of sleep.

Such is the plight of an average Accra dweller. So when do we have the serenity to think? Is noise becoming a virtue?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not think so. This agency is mandated to prescribe standards and guidelines relating to the pollution of air, water, land and noise. It liaises and co-operates with government agencies and other bodies and institutions to protect the environment.

Mrs Angelina Tutuah Mensah, Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the EPA, says the EPA has intensified its campaigns to educate the public that it is a criminal offence to make noise and that noise poses serious health hazards including loss of hearing. The EPA is doing this through various public and private media. It is to continue with these campaigns on community and experimental radios and will employ the organisation of regional environmental durbars for the purpose.

Significantly, the daily complaints the EPA has been receiving has increased from 10 to 35 recently, an indication that people are not happy about noise and would not allow others to disturb their peace. The other side of this increase in the number of complaints, however, could be that those who are creating noise are not stopping the practice or that more people are making noise!

So what are our options as citizens being disturbed by noise? Mrs Mensah explains that the individual so disturbed should approach the person making the noise for a dialogue on the matter. If the noise persists, he/she should write to the metropolitan, municipal or district assembly and copy the EPA. What the EPA does after receiving such complaint is to come to the location with equipment/machines to monitor the situation with the view to finding out if the noise being made is permissible. Once it establishes that the noise is indeed unacceptable, it writes to the person making the noise. If he does not stop, it then sends the matter to court.

The EPA has great challenges in carrying out this function which is only a fraction of its mandate, with only 350 professionals. Mrs Mensah spoke of dangers staff faced going out deep into the night to measure noise levels and the possibility of being mistaken for armed robbers especially because of the equipment they go with. Added to this, she notes that the family life of personnel was being deeply affected.

She was of the opinion that the fines that went with those convicted for making noise was not serving as a deterrent and called for the strengthening of the laws to be able to review such fines.

Another challenge facing the EPA is the inactiveness of the assemblies in checking noisemaking.

The Local Government Act 1993 (Act 462) empowers the District Assembly by section 10(3) (e) to be responsible for the development, improvement and management of human settlement and the environment in the district.

Each District Assembly is also established by Act 462 as the Planning Authority for its area of authority. One important function of the Planning Authority, very relevant to having implications for noise pollution control is its powers of enforcement against nuisance.

Section 296(7) makes it an offence in any town to willfully or wantonly and after being warned to desist, make any loud or unseemly noise to disturb any person.

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) for instance has bye laws (1995) that prohibit the sale of records and other recorded music without approval and licence. The law prohibits the playing of any recorded music in public for advertising purpose so as to cause a public nuisance, and the prohibition of the playing of music in night clubs, restaurants or drinking bars or other places of refreshment or entertainment to an extent of causing public nuisance.

The bye-laws also prohibit the playing of music when conducting a religious service so loudly so as to cause a nuisance to the public and residents in the area!

So with all these laws why do the assemblies look on while such noise goes on? Why do people continue to disturb the peace of others in their communities?

Mr Kwao Sackey, Chief Executive of the Ga East Municipal Assembly, explained in an interview at Abokobi that the assembly had been receiving many complaints about noise being created by drinking bars and churches in the municipality but the assembly’s difficulty in checking the situation was the lack of a doscimeter— an instrument for measuring noise levels.

He said the assembly had to prove in court that a person was making noise above the permitted level of 55 decibels and this could only be done by the doscimeter which the assembly does not have.

“ So for now we try to do mediation between the complainant and the person a complaint has been brought against”, he said.

He said noise-making was a serious problem at low-income areas where people seem more accommodating of noise from churches and would not want to complain for fear of being labelled witches and wizards.

Mr Joseph Quacoe, Municipal Environmental Officer (Public Health), appealed to the public for assistance to procure a doscimeter for the assembly to aid it in its work since requests for money to buy one has not yielded response.

The doscimeter costs GH¢8,000.

The challenges faced by the EPA and the assemblies and the general attitude of Ghanaians towards noise may mean that noise-making would be part of us for a long time to come. For those of us who are suffering from excessive noise, prayers to change the heart of noise-makers may seem our only way out now!

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

GIVE ME BACK MY CHILDHOOD

By Doreen Hammond
MY name is Afia. I am 14 and would like to share my story with all those who would like to listen. Is it a sad story? Not exactly, but I wouldn’t call it a sweet one either. It is all about how I have been denied the sweet childhood my mummy told me she had when she was my age.
This sweet childhood of yesteryears is gradually passing me by and I may miss it forever. It is all about this enterprise called education which mummy insists I should have in order to become somebody in future. And so now I wake up at 4.30 a.m. in order to be in school by 7.30 a.m.
We live at one of the new sites in the city and so it takes us not less than one and a half hours to get to the school. So why don’t I attend a school around my community? Well, mum insists that she wants me to be in a GOOD school and the ones in the neighbourhood are not exactly her idea of good schools! So there are bad schools and good schools? And how does one end up in either a good or a bad school? Is it a matter of choice or what?
I get home around 6 p.m. every day, after two hours of slugging it out in traffic. After dinner and a quick shower (mum says every female needs a shower twice a day! True?), I go to my books to attend to the legion of homework that accompanies me home daily. With eyes barely opened after doing my homework, I go through my notes for the next day’s activities. Then I retire to bed late, feeling drained of all my energy.
If ever I harbour any hope of using the weekend for some rest and any personal work, that is not to be. At 8.30 a.m. on Saturdays I am back in school for weekend classes. And then on Sundays the home teacher arrives after church and stays till evening.
As if this is not enough, vacations are no longer used for the purpose for which they are intended. They are no longer about breaking off from academic work, playing with my friends and fallowing the brain for next term’s school work. It is all about summer school, even though, according to mummy, summer and winter used not to be part of our weather pattern. So even on vacation I have the misfortune of still being in school. My whole life is school, school and school!
Poor Afia, her situation is a general reflection of what most children, especially those in the cities, go through on a daily basis.
What has changed so much that preparing our children for the Basic Education Certificate Examination looks like preparing them to go to war? Yet, in spite of all the extra classes, there are complaints that our children are generally not performing well in the BECE, especially in English, the very medium of instruction, and Mathematics.
The numerous pronouncements made by the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service against extra classes notwithstanding, they continue in earnest. Various sums of money are collected from parents to organise these classes.
The schools argue that the children need extra tuition to be able to cover the syllabi. Some make a case for extra classes as a means for helping the weak ones; that is, children who need more time to grasp what they are taught in class.
Some parents are of the view that the extra classes must be held in the interest of the children but should be at no cost to parents. Other parents argue that the teachers must be given some incentives, not necessarily remuneration, for teaching the children. Others are still of the opinion that additional classes or tuition is required when there is the need for final-year pupils and students to complete the syllabi.
Until recently when it became the norm in many basic and second-cycle schools, extra classes were used to polish up pupils who were about to write their examination. Teachers used extra classes to discuss past examination questions and give students guidelines on how to answer questions.
For now, the extra classes continue, in spite of the concerns raised against them, and pupils are charged for those classes. Even pupils in classes as low as Primary One in some schools attend extra classes. Indeed, in some schools failure to pay for extra classes results in hot lashes for the children.
This gives the impression that extra classes are a means for teachers to make some money. After all, when teachers go to the filling station to buy fuel, the attendant’s knowledge that they are teachers does not put fuel in the cars. They have to pay with money.
So why can’t the syllabi be covered during normal school hours? Is it that the syllabi have been so loaded that they are overworking both teachers and pupils, to the extent that even vacations are no vacations?
On most school compounds during vacation, it is common to see students dressed in all kinds of attire and hanging out in groups doing everything and anything, apart from studying. Is that what has become known as the summer school?
Have rest and vacation no longer a place in a child’s upbringing? What happened to the mock cooking (enkro bo), ampe, hop scotch, etc. that were part of our growing up?
While parents are busy looking for money to pay bills and fees, children continuously sit in the classrooms. Is it all going to be about money, since, for the schools, that seems the motivation for organising all kinds of classes?
Is the time allotted for schoolwork so short that teachers cannot finish the syllabi within the stipulated period? Children used to learn through play but they now have little time for that. They have to take their breakfast as they ride in cars to school and their parents use the little time between the time they arrive in school and the time they run off into their classrooms to teach them the homework they are loaded with.
And what impact do we expect a teacher who is always tired and overloaded with teaching to have on his pupils? Do they have time to prepare their notes?
According to the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr Charles Parker-Allotey, the GES does not think that the syllabi can not be covered within the normal school hours. He said, however, that the GES had decided that instructional hours in basic schools be increased from five to six hours to stop the organisation of extra classes.
The increase in hours would be at no cost to parents, he noted, adding that the suggestion had been sent in a memo to the Ministry of Education for consideration and approval.
The decision, he said, was in response to persistent requests by basic schools that they needed to organise extra classes in order to cover the syllabi. He said the GES management thought an additional hour should be able to help teachers cover the syllabi.
In taking that decision, Mr Parker-Allotey said, the management of the GES considered the burden on parents financially and pupils/students who got no rest because of the organisation of extra classes.
He explained that as early as 6.30 a.m. some pupils had to be in school for extra classes before the normal school hours began and have another session of extra classes, known as “extra extra classes”, after the normal school hours. He said the GES management considered the fact that workers in the Civil Service worked for 12 hours and that the additional hour for instruction in schools would not be out of place.
“The GES also compared the instructional hours in Ghana to those in other African countries and even some countries outside Africa and saw that we have very few hours,” Mr Parker-Allotey stated.
Child psychologists are of the view that for a holistic upbringing of the child, playing, especially with his or her peers, is very important. This is even so in our case where most schools do not even have facilities for outdoor games. Here, we are talking about games such as football.
What kind of children are we nurturing? We need to give children back their childhood!

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

MODERN DAY EDUCATION OR 419?

MODERN DAY EDUCATION OR 419?

By Doreen Hammond
On trees and in between trees, between the stands of billboards, on electric poles and street lights, walls of public toilets, uncompleted buildings and stalls hang different kinds of banners and posters advertising admission for various educational institutions. The newspapers, television and radio stations are not left out.
They include adverts for crèches, primary schools, computer training, language schools, pre- universities and universities and most popular among them, remedial classes.
The latest I saw yesterday was a banner advertising “Last minute, exam tips for Special WASSCE, English and Maths” when students are promised to come “face to face with examiners”. The only indication of a contact on the advert was a cell phone number, no location address.
The entry requirement of some of these pre-tertiary institutions is “ no academic qualification needed”. Significant about the phenomenon is the use of names which come very close to those of known and reputable institutions world-wide. Obviously, this is to create an imaginary link for the purpose of getting some credibility rubbed on them. So a name like Hurry Institute is then changed to Harry for this purpose. A derivative of Havard is also used for obvious effect. And by some co-incidence if you like, some of these institutes advertise their location prominently—Legon! Need I say why?
The worry is that, there seems a ready market for such institutions as indicated by the increasing number of such adverts by the day. Ghanaians have realised the importance of education and most parents would squeeze water out of stone to ensure that their children receive the best of education. But must this be a justification for charlatans to milk them dry of their hard earned money under the guise of providing this all important service of education?
Can just anybody with any infrastructure provide a service as important as education? And so now we have institutions operating from metal containers and some hotel conference rooms purporting to be offering graduate and post graduate courses . Something is just not being done right.
Recently, the General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association, Mr Bright Blewu, expressed concern about the existence of mushroom journalism institutions which are churning out half- baked journalists. For him, this situation is contributing to the low standards of journalism the country is now facing.
Mr Blewu said that although the association had complained to the National Accreditation Board (NAB), these institutions continued to operate with impunity while the board and the entire society look on helplessly.
Just a few days ago it took the intervention of a traditional chief to warn the public about the emergence of some schools purporting to be running courses on oil and gas for job seekers. He appropriately warned the public to be wary of these so - called Oil and Gas Universities.
While the action of the chief is commendable, it nevertheless questions the role of the state institution empowered to give accreditation to educational institutions. For instance, has the board any criteria for determining who qualifies for accreditation and is this criterion being followed to the letter?
Does the board also have enforcement powers and the legal backing to ensure that schools which do not meet the criteria do not operate? Who protects the Ghanaian from educational institutions which are not worth attending?
The sad reality is that the situation the GJA General Secretary spoke about is not only limited to journalism but other professions as well. As more of these sub-standard institutions are encouraged to flourish through our collective commission or omission, it is our human capacity which stands to suffer; if it has not already.
So we will have half- baked teachers, accountants, journalists, nurses, business people etc. and mother Ghana will be the ultimate loser. As it is now, it looks like getting an accreditation to set up an institution is just routine and that once you apply you must necessarily get it.
The NAB was established by the Government of Ghana in 1993 with the enactment of PNDCL 317, 1993 to accredit both public and private (tertiary) institutions with regard to the contents and standards of their programmes.
It is to determine, in consultation with the appropriate institution or body, the programme and requirements for the proper operation of that institution and the maintenance of acceptable levels of academic or professional standards. It determines the equivalence of diplomas, certificates and other qualifications awarded by institutions in Ghana or elsewhere.
By its mandate, NAB is to accredit all categories of tertiary institutions, be they universities, university colleges, polytechnics, colleges, schools, institutions, academies, or tutorial colleges.
The big question is how do parents and or prospective students ascertain the accreditation status of an institution before enrolment?
Though the Board publishes information about accredited institutions from time to time in the national newspapers and the Gazette, this is rather sporadic and does not seem to deter charlatans whose only motivation is to enrich themselves at the expense of innocent Ghanaians who want to be educated. The information can also be obtained from the Secretariat of the NAB but how practicable is this for everyone seeking admission into an educational institution?

By Regulation 19(2) of L. I. 1700 (2002) :
“No person or institution shall
(a) Advertise or continue to advertise or in any manner hold itself out to the public as a tertiary institution;
(b) admit or continue to admit students or conduct courses or programmes of instruction leading to an award of certificates, diplomas or degrees;
(c) continue to operate as a tertiary institution where the institution’s authorisation, accreditation or registration has been suspended or revoked; or
(d) otherwise embark upon or continue with any activity preparatory to the establishment of facilities for tertiary education, after the commencement of these Regulations unless the person or institution complies with these Regulations”.
Regulation 19(3) of L. I. 1700 adds that: “Any person or institution that contravenes any provision of Sub-regulation (2) commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 250 penalty units”.
But proprietors easily counter such publications with vigorous and aggressive advertising campaigns in the media.
The question is : how many of these unaccredited institutions have been brought to book at the instance of NAB?
On its website, the NAB warns that in recent times, the Board has received certificates acquired online for evaluation. Its investigations have revealed that these certificates are fake, as the institutions supposed to have issued them do not exist. It has therefore warned employers, institutions, parents and individuals to be wary of such online qualifications and endeavour to seek information from the National Accreditation Board.
Is a warning from NAB enough? Must such unaccredited institutions be allowed to flourish when their only motivation seems to be to swindle people whose only crime is seeking education?
Mr Kwame Dattey, Executive Secretary of the NAB, who may be the one to provide answers to the many questions raised appears to be similarly worried about the situation. He says that NAB also finds it difficult to trace some of these institutions which advertise themselves without accreditation ( which is illegal) but was ready to follow hints from the public to investigate them and then hand over the matter to the security agencies.
He explained that some of these institutions were ignorant about the need to get accreditation and in some cases the NAB educates them after asking them to remove their banners/adverts .
The NAB has a critical role to play in ensuring that we have the right institutions to train our work force for the present and the future. For now we cannot say the Board is operating at its optimum. It has challenges with monitoring . It is about time we retooled and built the capacity of the Board to perform as per its mandate. Failure to do this and we risk having more square pegs in round holes in the not too distant future.

Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com

OUR WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

By Doreen Hammond
The driver of a waste collection truck was recently assaulted by residents of an area where he had gone to dump refuse. It was an unfortunate incident but the residents were offended that he was bringing filth and, therefore, disease to the area so they would not sit idle and watch him do that . That was why they took the law into their own hands.
But according to the driver, he had been carrying the waste for so long with no disposal site available hence his decision to dump it somewhere. The above scenario shows how dire the waste disposal situation in Accra has become. With old sites full and communities not ready to accommodate anymore of such sites, the future of our waste disposal looks rather bleak.
On my way from a funeral recently, I missed a turn and ended up somewhere on the Pantang Hospital Road, towards Abokobi where I encountered what can only be described as a frightening sight. A huge area full of refuse, supposed to be a dumping site right in the middle of a residential community. The area, to put it mildly, is inundated with plastic/polythene bags; especially those of pure water sachets. There is another huge rubbish dump at Achimota which is often decorated with vultures, full of plastic bags and stench. There may be other such refuse dumps in the city of Accra but these two are enough to humble you into fear.
What kind of waste management system are we practising? All that we are doing now is just transferring waste from one part of town to another. So you may be paying for your domestic waste to be carried away but the question is : Where is that waste headed for and how is it treated?
Our waste disposal methods, especially in this 21st Century brings to the fore the kind of leadership we have been cursed with as a people, both in the past and present. For instance, for how long will our leadership continue to play politics with this plastic bag menace as our environment continues to suffer choked gutters and its attendant floods? Has it not become more than obvious that we do not have the capacity to handle this type of waste and that the best way out is to ban it, as has been done in Rwanda and Kenya? After all we have not always lived with this polythene so why are we behaving as if without it our lives will come to a halt?
The sad reality is that any country which disposes of its waste in this crude manner in this 21st Century is only courting cholera and similar diseases as we are doing now.
As we walk in our neighbourhoods we encounter them; as we drive on the streets of Accra and even the remotest parts of our land, we are constantly reminded of how plastic waste now rules our lives; they fly all over hitting our windscreens and several of them are trapped even in our barbed wire fences. We swim with plastic bags on our beaches and even when we dig to plant, black polythene bags stare at us!
At traffic lights in the city are found itinerant vendors of rodenticide, powders and traps for control of rats, cockroaches and other crawling and flying household pests. These vendors seem to be doing brisk business. At the Goldhouse traffic lights, for instance, one of these hawkers shoved the dried carcass of mice at my side glass in a bid to advertise his rodenticide which he had nicknamed “Kwakwe last stop”, literally translated as “the last stop for mice”. Even from our primary school environmental studies which has now been named Citizenship Education, we know the kind of environment these pests thrive in—filth! The health effects of the continuous use of these rodenticide and powders is another matter but we have lived in insanitary conditions for years now with no sign of solution in sight.
Or are we waiting until such time that we begin choking in the filth before we go and contract a foreign loan and contract a foreign company to come and deal with it like we did with the Korle Lagoon and others? Or we are waiting for the IMF and others to come in and tell us that we live in filth so we should do this and that before the next budgetary support would be released?
Our leadership must begin to take the bull by the horns and take drastic decisions even if the short-term effect would be unpleasant. Can you imagine where this polythene menace will take us in the next 10 years? Your guess is as good as mine.
The Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Alfred Vanderpuije, recently announced that from 2015, Accra would transform its waste disposal methods and turn waste into other productive uses.
Well said, Mr Mayor, but the sad reality is that at the rate we are moving, we may not be alive to put his beautiful plans in action in 2015. If we must tackle the waste menace then it is now or never. And this is where I think Mr Vanderpuije’s focus should be.
To put it bluntly, Accra’s waste disposal arrangements in this modern day and age and that of several other towns and cities in this land of ours are not only shambolic but a shame. We must begin to look at a more holistic waste disposal industry that goes beyond just collecting our waste from one point to another and this must be fast, for time is not on our side.
Writer’s email: aamakai@hotmail.com

Time to sanitise the movie industry

By Doreen Hammond
Almost on a daily basis, Ghanaian producers are coming out with what they want us to believe are movies. Just watching the excerpts of these movies as adverts on our television sets tells us what to expect and watching them confirms it.
Almost all of them are about witchcraft, sex, insults, profanity, occultism and wickedness; sometimes for no reason. It is either a mother-in-law dislikes her daughter-in-law so much that she continuously destroys the babies in her womb or someone disliking another person so much that he puts poison in his food to cause death or spiritually gives him an “everlasting sore”.
One of these movies recently released is a combination of little parts of several western movies. I could simply not believe my eyes! What happened to originality? A person gets assaulted or even murdered in these movies and the Police is nowhere in sight. A child is physically or mentally abused in this modern day and all the movie makes us believe is that it will take a ghost to stop the abuse. And by the time this ghost appears too much harm has been done!
This trend is indeed worrisome. It is worrisome because the arts are one of the most powerful tools that shape the consciousness of any society. It mobilises people for national development in the direction they want to go as a people. Is this really the way we want to go? Watch an American movie and you are inspired by the roles played by those representing Americans in these movies. They are always the strong and strong-willed, smartest, determined and witty. The Indians display their dancing and singing skills and tell their stories without going obscene even if the sound which follows their blows is too loud for a human being to possibly survive!
In contrast, our movies are so steeped in spiritualism, occultism and outright profanity to the extent of losing reason. Is it, therefore, surprising that we still have people who will bypass the health facility and head for the shrine at the slightest headache and still be surrounded by filth and be surprised that cholera is killing us? When science has proven that it is filth and the eating of faecal matter that causes cholera and headaches are no strange diseases in the hospital?
Usually, there is no clear-cut story line, plot or any moral lessons to be learnt from these movies and they seem to go on and on and on with no substance. It is as if the actors go on location to decide what to do and once it is recorded, there is no review or editing. Even the entertainment value of these movies is questionable as witchcraft and the powers of the underworld are continuously hyped. We don’t even have an image of our own sasabonsam but the computer generated images of creatures we find in Sinbad.
The titles of most of these movies indicate that the producers never have any international audience in mind. Examples are Animguasie, Bantama Aware, King Kong, Eno Samanpa, Heaven Akwantuo, Nsohwe mu Nsohwe and Nebuchadnezzar. Most of them have no less than two parts with some, like Kyeiwaa, running into many parts . It leaves one wondering whether those movies go through any scrutiny at all.
Even in the days of old when technology was less advanced, we used what we had to entertain and educate ourselves as a people. We could learn practical lessons from watching Osofo Dadzie, Obra and a few others and also entertain ourselves, even if they were on black and white screens. Why not now? We are too busy copying others that we now see Ghanaians dressed in lace with big headgear in the kitchen or just relaxing at home. But that is not real, for you and I know that Ghanaian women hardly dress like that at home! Even the Nigerians whom we may be copying are gradually discarding those kind of movies which we are busily embracing now. If they were giving the kind of titles we are giving now, I doubt if they could have broken into our market. A movie is set in a pre–colonial era , in some forest yet you find an actress wearing clothes made from jute (kotoku), but wearing acrylic nails!
Tell me what will attract a Nigerian or a Sierra-Leonean or a South African to watch a movie titled Bantama Aware. Even when we attempt to give English subtitles to these movies it is a great struggle; the translated English is so bad grammatically, and the spellings are funny.
Over the years, I think one of the challenges of our artists and entrepreneurs in general has been our inability to see beyond Ghana as a market. But the market in our globalised world is at least, West Africa, if not Africa and the world at large. Tell me, where outside Ghana can you promote a song like “Okraman Funu Ba” to an international audience?
In this age when technology has advanced and most societies are moving forward, we are still allowing the things which held our forefathers back to affect us. How can we build a vibrant and positive society when our music is mostly melancholic with hard work being seen as suffering and our movies are all about witchcraft and superstition? If we really want to develop as a people then we cannot leave such an important institution like the movie industry to the dictates of demand and supply and greedy entrepreneurs whose only motive is to smile to the bank, damn all of us.
This is even more so in a society where more than half of the population are not literate . A large number of the populace seem gullible as far as these things are concerned.
Governments exist not only for the physical security of the citizenry but also their psychological security. I think the government should come in to ensure some sanity in the movie industry, and move fast. Will that constitute censorship? Then who will sanitise the movie industry?

Writer’s email: aamakai@hotmail.com