By Doreen Hammond
We would be heading again for the Independence Square on March 6, as part of activities to mark 55 years of the country’s independence. Similar activities will be held at the regional and district levels throughout the country.
As is statutorily the case, the day would be declared a public holiday and most Ghanaians would rejoice and be glad in it, especially workers who will have a day off from work.
Rightly so because this day marks the beginning of our journey into statehood and self determination after years of British colonial rule. A journey which took off at the Old Polo Grounds with Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the driving seat, surrounded by the indefatigable big six namely, Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, Dr J. B. Danquah, Edward Akufo Addo and William Ofori Atta.
To all these gallant sons and daughters and others who cannot be mentioned, we salute you for your sacrifices in bringing us this far. It is in this regard that we share in the recent honouring of the Osagyefo by the AU with the mounting of his statue at the forecourt of the new AU headquarters in Adis-Ababa; an attestation to the saying that indeed, Nkrumah never dies.
Having said these, let us also use the occasion to do an assessment of our performance on the developmental journey. Such a reflection would afford us the space to determine how far we have come in the last 55 years, where we are going and how we intend to get there. As the saying goes, an unexamined life is not worth living.
In spite of our initial track record with military coup d’etats, Ghana is now touted as one of the few democratic countries on a continent rife with political and social upheavals. With comparatively peaceful, free and fair elections since 1992 and still counting, these achievements can be no fluke.
Ghanaians have also promoted freedom of expression as enshrined in our 1992 Constitution as a requisite for democracy. But to a large extent we have not backed this freedom of speech with the corresponding responsibility and this is quite worrisome. We have turned the many radio stations that have come into being into platforms for trading insults, and that is far from what democracy means.
Our economic indicators also seem to point at the right direction as inflation, GDP and growth are all said to be on course, though the reality, as far as our pockets are concerned, is different.
We are also not doing badly in general infrastructural build-up, especially in the areas of road, schools under trees and some health facilities in the rural areas.
The rule of law seems to be working to some appreciable extent, even if there is room for improvement. To a large extent also, we have managed to remain together as one people with a common sense of purpose and destiny. This should not detract from the fact that cronyism and ethnocentrism seem to be on the rise in recent times with some groups preferring to play the tribal or ethnic card at the expense of our collective good as a people.
Be that as it may, these and many more are achievements worthy of celebrating by any country.
Despite these achievements we still have a long way to go. If we were to do a dispassionate post-mortem and answer the question: how truly independent can we claim to be 55 years down the line, I’m sure the answer would be a mixed one and the reasons are not far fetched.
For instance, reports indicate that about half of the population of Ghanaians (51 per cent) do not have decent places of convenience. The Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development recently made this known and explained that 12 million Ghanaians are forced to practise open defecation, which poses health hazards. While other countries may be building sophisticated war ships, nuclear plants and embarking on space expeditions, we are still grappling with the problem of where to empty our bowels after 55 years of nationhood. This is clearly an indictment on our collective selves as a nation and all efforts should be made to right this wrong. This is clearly not a mark of a mature state.
Fifty-five years down the line and we are not producing enough to feed ourselves. We import almost everything from snails to tomatoes. Our farming is still mainly subsistent and we depend on the hoe and cutlass and rain to water our crops.
We have not been able to develop and expand irrigation systems to control when we have crops in abundance and when we will not. Ours is that of seasonal farming and that is why we either have a glut on our market or a shortage. Even while we have tomatoes in abundance we have not been able to preserve them in tins, for example, and our market has been flooded with different kinds of tinned tomatoes from other countries. The effect of this state of affairs on our economy as relates to foreign exchange is obvious.
Fifty-five years down the line and we have not been able to institute educational policies that give clear directions as to where we want our children to go. We have reviewed a four-year senior high school duration to a three-year one without putting the necessary infrastructure in place to accommodate the policy.
As a result we watched on as our children were cramped like sardines in classrooms and dining halls turned into dormitories without the appropriate facilities. The children entered senior high school before we thought of building classrooms where they will sit to learn. What happened to planning? The ad hoc policies have translated into poor results across board.
Fifty-five years down the line and even the Surgical Medical Emergency Department of our last-stop hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, lacks the basic logistics and infrastructure that would ensure that a patient gets the best of care. Not because staff are not qualified but because the tools to work with are not available; even critical equipment like a theatre bed has become a challenge. Health care is still a nightmare with run-down facilities in most of our health facilities. What are we using our taxes for?
We have not been able to plan ahead to contain the numbers in our hospitals to the extent that once a patient is on admission, relatives would have to be at hand to provide nursing care, whether in the right or wrong way because nurses are inadequate to meet the workload.
Fifty-five years down the line and most of us have succeeded in throwing away our various Ghanaian languages which make us Ghanaian, preferring to speak only English and still give names that our colonial masters left for us to give our children; and we call ourselves independent?
How independent have we become when our youth continue to believe that success can only be achieved in another land and not our own?
Fifty-five years down the line and you will be surprised how many Ghanaians will race on board a ship docked at the port, ready to send people into any foreign land to do menial jobs.
Rail transport, which seems our best bet at easing the heavy traffic in the capital has eluded us. Promises of a railway line from Accra to Paga have turned out to be empty talk.
Forging ahead, we need to continue to take account of our strengths and weaknesses. We should continue to build on the things that unite us as a people and eschew all negative attitudes that would lead us onto the path of self-destruction.
Collectively and individually, we should always be guided by the words of one of our patriotic songs which says that “Others came and did their bit and it is now our turn to also build on”. The big question is: Are we building anything that would make posterity proud of us?
We should all resolve to work harder, be more patriotic and remain united as a people so that next year by this time we can give a more positive account of our stewardship. Ghanaians are in one ship called Ghana and if it sinks, we all sink together.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Who protects the househelp?
By Doreen Hammond
The recent story in the news about the molestation of a house help to the extent of burning her back with a hot pressing iron and breaking her legs was very pathetic.
It is not as if the plight of the house help has ever been good but this particular story of such inhumane treatment to someone whose job is to help the upkeep of home, defied human reasoning.
This 19 year old house help was said to have been locked in a toilet and brought out occasionally for further maltreatment. If this had happened in the days of Kunta Kinte in the film Roots, I could have believed it but in 21st century Ghana? Well, the Police are investigating and it will be interesting to know the outcome of the case.
The phenomenon of keeping house helps who used to be referred to as maidservants, maids or house girls is not a new one. It became very common when women began to take on multiple roles as home keepers, workers and breadwinners and started working outside their homes . With the gradual erosion of the extended family system which used to provide support for the nuclear family, the house help became a savior to most homes.
In addition to this , the present economic situation most families find themselves in has made the services of the house help even more necessary. The house helps take on the role of helping to care for children, washing, cooking, ironing and doing general household chores as mother and father leave their homes very early in the morning in search of money for the payment of school fees, high electricity bills, water, to buy food, clothes and pay for shelter.
In spite of the critical role house helps play in homes, their general conditions of service have remained poor. They don’t have much of a choice as to what to eat with some getting gari after pounding mounds of fufu or even sharing the meals of the dogs. To top it all up, house helps do not have the many liberties that the household enjoys yet they are expected to be the first to wake up and the last to go to bed irrespective of the fact that they have no proper sleeping places and they enjoy no medical cover.
From some village and with no idea about the people she has been brought to live with , the house help is supposed to quickly adjust , shirking off her initial psychological fear of the unknown and get down to duty.
The case of those who are old is much better than that of children who should be in school but have become house helps because of the difficult economic situations in their homes.
In the some homes their general appearance easily give them away for what they are—servants, in spite of the term house help that has been coined for them recently. Either they are wearing some over sized dresses, or you find them in an old kaba belonging to madam but with a different kind of skirt or slit which does not match. You could still argue that they are better of being in such clothes than the tattered ones they had in the village.
In verbal contracts signed with parents or their guardians, moneys may change hands but hardly is such money felt by the house help. The house help is the beast of burden. Promises of a better life and even education are often left at the very place they were made.
In homes where there are unscrupulous and henpecked masters with madams who seem a little bit on the heavy side , some of these house helps end up warming the beds of the master yet master still draws the whip at the slightest opportunity to avoid detection.
Though this situation seems to be changing, with some families putting house helps into trade and school after a stipulated period of service, how many house helps have such luck?
The country has seen the springing up of some agencies which recruit people to serve as house helps in homes. These agencies collect moneys for placing house helps not only from the employer but the house help too. She has to send a part of everything she earns to the agency. Here again it is the house help who gets fleeced of the little she makes from her toil and sweat.
These agencies give the semblance of a well organised institution. There are forms to be filled and contracts to be signed and passport pictures but the contract signed is no guarantee that a house help would stay with you till the expiration of that contract. These agencies claim to charge so much because they train the house help. But it is very difficult to tell what kind of training they get especially with house help brought from the village in the night and given away by morning.
These agencies are not able to guarantee the character of the house help because they do no background check of the house help they give away. In such cases the house help could leave the home with valuables and there will be no means to trace her.
The primary aim of these agencies therefore is not to provide service but to make moneys from both the house help and the one who hires her.
As humans, house helps cannot be said to be without their own short comings. Even with those who work on an agreed allowance, their whole attitude to work is as though they are doing a favour to their employer.
On a daily basis their duties have to be spelt out to them and they would always deliberately cut corners like sweeping only parts of a room they have been assigned to, breaking glasses and other kitchen equipment out of sheer carelessness and show a general lack of concern for items in the home because they don’t feel a part of it. Laziness and petty theft cannot be disassociated from them.
In even more serious cases, stories have been told of how house helps have abused children left in their care by even going to the extent of introducing them to sex.
Looking at the way things are going, house helps are going to be part of the family system for a very long time to come. It is a matter of demand and supply.
The industry of house helps and their working conditions cannot continue like this. If they are being hired to work, house helps must necessarily be of the age of consent, and there must be modalities and laws put in place and enforced to see to it that they are not exploited. They must also be made to understand that there are rules governing their work and they must provide the services they are being paid to provide.
At the end of the day it should be a win-win situation for the house help, the family and the agency.
The recent story in the news about the molestation of a house help to the extent of burning her back with a hot pressing iron and breaking her legs was very pathetic.
It is not as if the plight of the house help has ever been good but this particular story of such inhumane treatment to someone whose job is to help the upkeep of home, defied human reasoning.
This 19 year old house help was said to have been locked in a toilet and brought out occasionally for further maltreatment. If this had happened in the days of Kunta Kinte in the film Roots, I could have believed it but in 21st century Ghana? Well, the Police are investigating and it will be interesting to know the outcome of the case.
The phenomenon of keeping house helps who used to be referred to as maidservants, maids or house girls is not a new one. It became very common when women began to take on multiple roles as home keepers, workers and breadwinners and started working outside their homes . With the gradual erosion of the extended family system which used to provide support for the nuclear family, the house help became a savior to most homes.
In addition to this , the present economic situation most families find themselves in has made the services of the house help even more necessary. The house helps take on the role of helping to care for children, washing, cooking, ironing and doing general household chores as mother and father leave their homes very early in the morning in search of money for the payment of school fees, high electricity bills, water, to buy food, clothes and pay for shelter.
In spite of the critical role house helps play in homes, their general conditions of service have remained poor. They don’t have much of a choice as to what to eat with some getting gari after pounding mounds of fufu or even sharing the meals of the dogs. To top it all up, house helps do not have the many liberties that the household enjoys yet they are expected to be the first to wake up and the last to go to bed irrespective of the fact that they have no proper sleeping places and they enjoy no medical cover.
From some village and with no idea about the people she has been brought to live with , the house help is supposed to quickly adjust , shirking off her initial psychological fear of the unknown and get down to duty.
The case of those who are old is much better than that of children who should be in school but have become house helps because of the difficult economic situations in their homes.
In the some homes their general appearance easily give them away for what they are—servants, in spite of the term house help that has been coined for them recently. Either they are wearing some over sized dresses, or you find them in an old kaba belonging to madam but with a different kind of skirt or slit which does not match. You could still argue that they are better of being in such clothes than the tattered ones they had in the village.
In verbal contracts signed with parents or their guardians, moneys may change hands but hardly is such money felt by the house help. The house help is the beast of burden. Promises of a better life and even education are often left at the very place they were made.
In homes where there are unscrupulous and henpecked masters with madams who seem a little bit on the heavy side , some of these house helps end up warming the beds of the master yet master still draws the whip at the slightest opportunity to avoid detection.
Though this situation seems to be changing, with some families putting house helps into trade and school after a stipulated period of service, how many house helps have such luck?
The country has seen the springing up of some agencies which recruit people to serve as house helps in homes. These agencies collect moneys for placing house helps not only from the employer but the house help too. She has to send a part of everything she earns to the agency. Here again it is the house help who gets fleeced of the little she makes from her toil and sweat.
These agencies give the semblance of a well organised institution. There are forms to be filled and contracts to be signed and passport pictures but the contract signed is no guarantee that a house help would stay with you till the expiration of that contract. These agencies claim to charge so much because they train the house help. But it is very difficult to tell what kind of training they get especially with house help brought from the village in the night and given away by morning.
These agencies are not able to guarantee the character of the house help because they do no background check of the house help they give away. In such cases the house help could leave the home with valuables and there will be no means to trace her.
The primary aim of these agencies therefore is not to provide service but to make moneys from both the house help and the one who hires her.
As humans, house helps cannot be said to be without their own short comings. Even with those who work on an agreed allowance, their whole attitude to work is as though they are doing a favour to their employer.
On a daily basis their duties have to be spelt out to them and they would always deliberately cut corners like sweeping only parts of a room they have been assigned to, breaking glasses and other kitchen equipment out of sheer carelessness and show a general lack of concern for items in the home because they don’t feel a part of it. Laziness and petty theft cannot be disassociated from them.
In even more serious cases, stories have been told of how house helps have abused children left in their care by even going to the extent of introducing them to sex.
Looking at the way things are going, house helps are going to be part of the family system for a very long time to come. It is a matter of demand and supply.
The industry of house helps and their working conditions cannot continue like this. If they are being hired to work, house helps must necessarily be of the age of consent, and there must be modalities and laws put in place and enforced to see to it that they are not exploited. They must also be made to understand that there are rules governing their work and they must provide the services they are being paid to provide.
At the end of the day it should be a win-win situation for the house help, the family and the agency.
The devil called PTA
By Doreen Hammond
It is difficult to put a date to when the slogan “Government cannot do it alone” began, but it seems to have come to stay and is being used by many state institutions as the reason why almost all sectors of our country are not running efficiently.
In the education sector, the slogan has translated into the formation of Parent –Teacher Associations (PTAs) in almost every basic and senior high school in the country.
It is equally difficult to trace when PTAs became part of our educational set up and who mooted an otherwise brilliant idea now turned into an instrument to fleece helpless parents. But my father tells me that when he was a student at Accra Academy in the fifties, this devil had not been conceived let alone born.
On the surface and as contained in many of the constitutions of these PTAs, they are to create and foster understanding and cooperation between parents / guardians and teachers in the training of their children.
These associations are supposed to facilitate the parental participation in the activities of the school for the benefit of the students. They are also to stimulate and maintain interest in the academic standards, sustain discipline and promote extracurricular activities. It also includes raising funds to support the development of the schools infrastructure.
Somehow these associations remain one that needs no registration to become a member and is not optional, once a child gains admission into a school, his parents or guardians become automatic members and that is why a parent could be penalised in the form of fines for not attending meetings. Even if a PTA meeting clashes with the burial of your mother, you are supposed to defer to the PTA or risk being fined for your absence!
Wonderful and well intentioned objectives they may look on paper but what have these PTAs been really up to in schools and how are they benefitting parents and students especially in public schools?
Discussions at these PTA meetings have been dominated by money. It has always been centred on collecting levies for everything from poly tanks to building classroom blocks, dormitories, teacher’s bungalows and even paying for chairs on which parents and teachers sit during such PTA meetings. The latest addition is electricity bills.
Apart from the Government approved fees for students / pupils in the case of public schools, parents at these meetings end up being cajoled into paying for so many things including what is termed “motivation” to teachers for doing the work they have been employed by the Ghana Education Service to do—teaching.
Even in private schools where the school is solely owned by a proprietor as a business entity, the PTAs are even more powerful. Parents are made to pay for all sorts of things including walls to fence the school even though they have no shares in the school.
Most meetings are hijacked by the cronies of the heads who are most often the chairmen of these associations to carry through the ideas of the heads, making believe that those ideas are those of parents.
For boarding schools, meetings are normally held on visiting days, a strategy to get parents to attend. Under duress, parents are made to sit through long hours of meetings while their minds are only centred on one thing—to see their children.
Apart from a few parents who question the impositions on parents, the rest sit and look on, for after all, question or no question it is the PTA chairman, the head of the school and the teachers who win. Sometimes something which is purported to be audited accounts are read out. In that state of mind all the parent wants to do is to get out of the room and see his/her child.
PTAs in some schools have become an avenue for some people to flaunt their wealth as these so called rich men keep proposing new projects without any consideration for the pocket of the less endowed parent.
When is enough supposed to be enough? Is the continuous existence of PTAs a statement on government’s inability to discharge what is clearly one of its constitutional requirements which is the provision of education? Why have successive governments not seen anything wrong with the excesses of PTAs? Let us say PTAs came about as a result of population growth but then what happened to planning to meet such growth?
The responsibility of education delivery in public schools should be that of Government and the role of the PTA should be purely supportive and voluntary, specifically ensuring the welfare of the child in the school.
The slogan of “Government cannot do it alone” is allowing Government to get away from its responsibilities of providing what the tax payers money is supposed to be used for.
So now we buy our own electricity poles, create our own water companies in our homes by digging our own bore holes, buy our own street lights, maintain the roads that lead to our communities and provide our own neighborhood security.
So what does the government provide for us to justify our continuous payment of taxes?
What happens to the many projects that parents contribute to building or providing after their children have left the schools when they are not shareholders of the school? No dividends?
The intention of running away from the high cost of private schools is often defeated by these associations which prefer to call themselves PTAs. Parents are already burdened with providing food, clothing and shelter for their children outside the school environment and their situation must not be compounded by the activities of these so called PTAs.
Certainly education is too important to be toyed with to the extent that even classroom blocks should be left on the shoulders of parents to build.
This trend of events must stop and PTAs must be called to order. They must be regulated in some way.
Alternatively, the government should come out openly to ask parents to pay for the facilities that they are unable to provide in the public schools. Payment for facilities which the Government is not providing “because the Government cannot do it alone” should be added officially to the school fees so that parents could plan and there will also be some transparency.
The PTA as it operates now is an otherwise brilliant idea that has been high jacked by a few to fleece already over burdened parents. This should not be allowed to go on. And that is why I could not help but agree with a parent who referred to it as the devil!
It is difficult to put a date to when the slogan “Government cannot do it alone” began, but it seems to have come to stay and is being used by many state institutions as the reason why almost all sectors of our country are not running efficiently.
In the education sector, the slogan has translated into the formation of Parent –Teacher Associations (PTAs) in almost every basic and senior high school in the country.
It is equally difficult to trace when PTAs became part of our educational set up and who mooted an otherwise brilliant idea now turned into an instrument to fleece helpless parents. But my father tells me that when he was a student at Accra Academy in the fifties, this devil had not been conceived let alone born.
On the surface and as contained in many of the constitutions of these PTAs, they are to create and foster understanding and cooperation between parents / guardians and teachers in the training of their children.
These associations are supposed to facilitate the parental participation in the activities of the school for the benefit of the students. They are also to stimulate and maintain interest in the academic standards, sustain discipline and promote extracurricular activities. It also includes raising funds to support the development of the schools infrastructure.
Somehow these associations remain one that needs no registration to become a member and is not optional, once a child gains admission into a school, his parents or guardians become automatic members and that is why a parent could be penalised in the form of fines for not attending meetings. Even if a PTA meeting clashes with the burial of your mother, you are supposed to defer to the PTA or risk being fined for your absence!
Wonderful and well intentioned objectives they may look on paper but what have these PTAs been really up to in schools and how are they benefitting parents and students especially in public schools?
Discussions at these PTA meetings have been dominated by money. It has always been centred on collecting levies for everything from poly tanks to building classroom blocks, dormitories, teacher’s bungalows and even paying for chairs on which parents and teachers sit during such PTA meetings. The latest addition is electricity bills.
Apart from the Government approved fees for students / pupils in the case of public schools, parents at these meetings end up being cajoled into paying for so many things including what is termed “motivation” to teachers for doing the work they have been employed by the Ghana Education Service to do—teaching.
Even in private schools where the school is solely owned by a proprietor as a business entity, the PTAs are even more powerful. Parents are made to pay for all sorts of things including walls to fence the school even though they have no shares in the school.
Most meetings are hijacked by the cronies of the heads who are most often the chairmen of these associations to carry through the ideas of the heads, making believe that those ideas are those of parents.
For boarding schools, meetings are normally held on visiting days, a strategy to get parents to attend. Under duress, parents are made to sit through long hours of meetings while their minds are only centred on one thing—to see their children.
Apart from a few parents who question the impositions on parents, the rest sit and look on, for after all, question or no question it is the PTA chairman, the head of the school and the teachers who win. Sometimes something which is purported to be audited accounts are read out. In that state of mind all the parent wants to do is to get out of the room and see his/her child.
PTAs in some schools have become an avenue for some people to flaunt their wealth as these so called rich men keep proposing new projects without any consideration for the pocket of the less endowed parent.
When is enough supposed to be enough? Is the continuous existence of PTAs a statement on government’s inability to discharge what is clearly one of its constitutional requirements which is the provision of education? Why have successive governments not seen anything wrong with the excesses of PTAs? Let us say PTAs came about as a result of population growth but then what happened to planning to meet such growth?
The responsibility of education delivery in public schools should be that of Government and the role of the PTA should be purely supportive and voluntary, specifically ensuring the welfare of the child in the school.
The slogan of “Government cannot do it alone” is allowing Government to get away from its responsibilities of providing what the tax payers money is supposed to be used for.
So now we buy our own electricity poles, create our own water companies in our homes by digging our own bore holes, buy our own street lights, maintain the roads that lead to our communities and provide our own neighborhood security.
So what does the government provide for us to justify our continuous payment of taxes?
What happens to the many projects that parents contribute to building or providing after their children have left the schools when they are not shareholders of the school? No dividends?
The intention of running away from the high cost of private schools is often defeated by these associations which prefer to call themselves PTAs. Parents are already burdened with providing food, clothing and shelter for their children outside the school environment and their situation must not be compounded by the activities of these so called PTAs.
Certainly education is too important to be toyed with to the extent that even classroom blocks should be left on the shoulders of parents to build.
This trend of events must stop and PTAs must be called to order. They must be regulated in some way.
Alternatively, the government should come out openly to ask parents to pay for the facilities that they are unable to provide in the public schools. Payment for facilities which the Government is not providing “because the Government cannot do it alone” should be added officially to the school fees so that parents could plan and there will also be some transparency.
The PTA as it operates now is an otherwise brilliant idea that has been high jacked by a few to fleece already over burdened parents. This should not be allowed to go on. And that is why I could not help but agree with a parent who referred to it as the devil!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
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
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
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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
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
Friday, October 14, 2011
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
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
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