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