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