Friday 20 December 2019

TALKING DRUM: Of grounded ambulances, a bewitched president & the 37 masquerades

Grounded ambulances at the forecourt of Parliament/Sate House

August 31st, 2019 marked my fourth year since I relocated from Spintex to somewhere in the Ga South Municipality in the Greater Accra Region. For these past years, I have observed one worrying trend on the Mallam-Odorkor Highway and George Walker Bush Highway [also known as the N1].

Almost every day, I see, at least, two taxis with their drivers crazily honking at others. Drivers of these taxis are themselves not crazy. They honk at their fellow drivers because at that material moment, their cars are not mere vehicles for carrying ‘ordinary’ passengers. They are ambulances!

At the back seats of these taxis, always stretching my neck to see when possible, is a pregnant woman— ostensibly in labor— sandwiched by two men,. Then, there would be another person at the front seat

The front-seat-sitting passenger’s role is to stretch his/her hand signaling other drivers to give way. The saddest part of the narrative is that, usually, such taxi-turned-ambulances honk in vain. They meet stagnant vehicular traffic that makes me cry and cringe within.

Yet, when they gradually make it to hospitals such as Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the taxi-tuned-ambulance is greeted with an inscription at the health facilities’ entrances— “Taxis Are Not Allowed!” Is this not sickening?

Having narrated all the above, what makes the ambulance debate in our country utterly sickening is the reason behind the Nana Akufo Addo-led government grounding 96 out of the 275 ambulances procured for all the constituencies in the country.

In a Neat FM interview, Minister for Special Development Initiative, Mavis Hawa Koomson, fully-filled with arrogance and power like that of a tethered he-goat, spewed some indescribable words in her analysis on these ambulances that have become an albatross on our necks.

When I saw a YouTube link of the said interview, I quickly downloaded it and watched the whole of the 19 minute 5 second long video. Although the link was shared by – I think – Peace FM’s Facebook account, I could not believe it at first.

Madam Koomson’s comments were so harsh, cruel and insensitive that I doubted she could have said that. Whoever has listened to the said tape would attest that the comments do not match our minister’s age as a grownup adult.

“[…] I know people are dying. But, did people start dying today?” Mavis Hawa Koomson proudly said. If these words were to be bottled, I am over confidently certain that its pungent smell could kill an elephant when sprayed on it.

You have ambulances parked at the forecourt of the Parliament House while some of our pregnant women and other patients alike go through the hell of being transported in taxis to hospitals and is this the best response you could give?

Then, when on Friday, December 13, 2019, President Akufo Addo had an encounter with the media, it came to light that he had ordered Madam Hawa not to distribute the ambulances.

For the fear of being tagged a pioneer in favoritism, Nana Akufo Addo said his government would rather wait for the other remaining ambulances to be shipped down to Ghana before their overall distribution. I must say that his government’s reason is somewhat understandable. If we take a look at the brouhaha that surrounded the Finance Ministry’s ‘genuine error’ in the omission of Volta roads from the 2020 budget, for instance, one is tempted to side with the reason given for grounding the 96 ambulances.

Nonetheless, to a large extent, it does not in any way make sense to look on unconcerned while women in labor and the sick – in both the cities and villages – struggle for taxis and tricycles as ambulances just because you [the president] want to be liked by all. Is that how to govern a developing country?

Mr. President, as you are so determined to be liked by all, I guess you are in a wrong position as the country’s leader. To be liked by all, I think you need to rather venture into the sale of ice-creams!

On three consecutive Sundays now, I would see on my way to work some young men dressed as masquerades. They stand on the roads just by the 37 Military Hospital, dance and solicit for alms. Here, I have rather observed that these masquerades end up not getting anything from drivers who ply the roads there and the reason is simple.

These 37 [Military Hospital] masquerades instead of dancing to entertain a few of the drivers at a time to catch their attention properly, rather try pleasing every driver whose car waits in traffic. And, this is exactly the failed strategy our president hinges his hopes on that at the end of the day, all the 29 million or so Ghanaians would call him Father Christmas.

Looking at the caliber of person that we saw in the then presidential candidate, Akufo Addo, and what he has ‘grown into’ now in relation with his decisions as the president of the country, I cannot but believe those who claim that he has been bewitched.

I certainly believe that, perhaps, there is an enchantment at the Jubilee House that blinds its occupants. When they leave power – as John Mahama did – they regain their consciousness.

Today, Mr. Mahama pleads with Ghanaians to give him another chance because he has realized his mistakes. And, I can bet with my lens that Nana Akufo Addo will say same should he lose the 2020 elections.

It is 2:14am on Thursday as I write this piece. I need to now go to bed as work awaits me early in the morning. I can’t kill myself. However, let me just draw your attention – if you did not know – that in most of the developed countries including Sweden and America, there are ambulances for animals. If you critically study how pets/animals are treated so well elsewhere, one is tempted to say that most Ghanaians would never have this level of pet-treatment in their own country, considering how successive governments here think and play politics with our healthcare.

I am getting so much annoyed reflecting on this and I do not want to continue spewing fire. If you have time, please listen to the song titled 52 Ambulances by Knii Lante featuring Blakk Rasta. It sums up my thoughts.

The writer. Solomon Mensah, is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.
Twitter: @aniwaba


Friday 13 December 2019

TALKING DRUM: Nana Addo, his colonial citizens & the ‘buy Ghana rice’ nonsense!



A photo of locally produced rice. Source: Culled from the internet.

I have always feared for patients— the sick I mean— who find time to listen to or watch news about Ghana or follow the country’s politics. I consider their plight as a suffering soul being hit with coup de grâce. Indeed, it is only he who wishes for a quick death that passionately follows these events with all their hearts.

It is not the case that we do not have qualified journalists to do a good job here in Ghana. Far from that. If I am not exaggerating, Ghana has great journalists that could compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world. The issue, rather, is that often these journalists’ stories reveal that the single scarcest commodity in the country is common sense. Yes, a revelation of lack of common sense mainly on the part of some of our leaders. That, which makes the listening to or watching of such news depressing!

Few weeks ago, TV3’s Peter Quao Adattor travelled to the Upper East Region of Ghana. He came back to Accra with a story that got almost everybody in the TV3 newsroom standing on their feet to express dismay.

The day we watched Mr. Adattor’s story as aired on Midday Live was on a Sunday afternoon. Rice farmers, especially in the valleys of Fumbisi and Gbedembilisi in the Builsa South District, had bountifully produced bags of rice. However, these farmers did not have [ready] market for their produce.

One farmer who spoke in the ‘Rice Glut’ story said that in order not to look on for their hundreds of bags to go waste, they were selling on promotional basis. When the market women buy two bags of the rice, they are given an extra bag each free of charge. Can you imagine!? As if that was not enough, even before the farmers could get these traders to do the buying, in the first place, they [farmers] would have to lure them by giving them one full guinea fowl also for free. Certainly, this is financially a dangerous time to be a rice farmer.

Then, the National Buffer Stock Company moved in to assess the situation on the back of the reported glut of rice. As predictable as the daily chaos at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange, the Chief Executive Officer of the Buffer Stock Company, Hanan Abdul-Wahab, promised these farmers of a ready market. That promise was actually to come into fruition in two weeks’ time from the day of the visit by the hypocrite fact-finding politicians.

As to whether this promise has been fulfilled or not is not really my source of worry. The farmers themselves did not believe that promise. What gets my head spinning is the apparent mindless game we— as a nation— proudly play. I have neither attended the University of Ghana Business School nor the London School of Economics. Nonetheless, there are some problems that do not require one to hold a certificate in a particular field before proffering a concrete solution to avert its occurrence in the first place.

From the days of Diego de Azambuja to the subsequent colonization of Africa by the greedy bustards, the plight of the continent’s farmers has been the same. There are deplorable roads linking farms to the cities and the preference of citizens going for foreign products over same produced locally have remained unchanged.

You ask yourself why we are so comfortable with this monumental failure and the answer is found right in the bosom of the greedy politicians. They would quickly choose their comfort over the plight of the masses. If not, why did they not find sense in proposing that the millions of dollars that they had wanted to use to construct that needless new chamber/parliament be used to, at least, give feeder roads to places where we get our foods from?

Why did they not, again, propose that such an amount be used to rigorously start a campaign to cut Ghana’s umbilical cord of overdependence? Would that not have weaned majority of our citizens off foreign goods? A lifestyle that only reflects what pertained in the colonial days.

The underlying argument here is that access to our farms and our preference for foreign goods hugely contribute to the losses we see our farmers suffer. And, to curb this trend goes beyond merely urging citizens to patronize locally produced rice [or any of such].

Speaking in Ho, the Volta Regional capital, to mark this year’s National Farmers’ Day, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo repeated a mistake he keeps committing. He urged Ghanaians to buy locally-grown rice.

Mr. President, because of you I am likely to write a book that would probably be dubbed ‘How To Govern A Developing Nation’. The truth is, we do not govern a developing nation by merely urging citizens to do the right thing. You impose! Impose hefty tariffs on imported rice/foods and other goods that our own people produce here. Why do we, for instance, allow an overflow of importation of poultry products while poultry farmers in Dormaa in the Bono Region alone could— to a large extent— feed the country?

And, should you think of the ripple effect of these measures to break the shackles of our underdevelopment, the formula to counter such [effect] is to let the nation endure whatever hardships that would come with it. If it so happens that even half of the state’s population would have to die of hunger, so be it. Those who would survive would live a better life thereafter and learn sense that overdependence on another state— especially on agriculture and health— is dangerous.

This is exactly what Richard Wright wrote to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in a letter as captured in the latter’s book, Dark Days In Ghana, that, “I say to you publicly and frankly: The burden of suffering that must be borne, impose it upon one generation! … Be merciful by being stern!”

Hello, Mr. President. I guess I have given you a clue on how to effectively run your government. There is no need telling Ghanaians that you and your wife cook local rice. How many bags of local rice do you buy in a year as a family? Borrowing the book title of the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, ‘With All Due Respect’, the next time you speak on this local rice, you must sound as a benevolent dictator in telling your citizens to purchase such.

If I were you, when citizens prove adamant buying, I would bill every public servant and SSNIT contributors a bag of the rice say, every three months, by deducting them from the source of their income. Even if everybody gets a cup of the rice, that will be fine. The soldiers at the various barracks are tasked to ensure that households get their deliveries and if they [citizens] will not eat it, they are at liberty to donate to the orphanages.

Until the day I hear of crazy measures as these to ensure we bridge the gap between the cities and villages and get Ghanaians to eat what they grow and grow what they eat, the so-called campaign on the purchase of local rice sounds but nonsense to my ears. It will only yield marginal results!

What have Emelia Arthur and Okyeame Kwame not done as ambassadors of the Made-In-Ghana campaign proper? You think about it and you ask yourself the question posed by the name of a show on Asԑmpa FM, Ԑkↄsii Sԑn? To wit, ‘How did it end?’

The writer, Solomon Mensah, is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.
Twitter: @aniwaba