It is nauseating to see state infrastructure going waste and governments borrowing money to fix such assets too late because we always don’t have the money to fund anything. Yet, we find the money for the politician to fund travels that we hardly appropriate in bring Malaysia, Hong Kong and UK or US to Ghana.
Travelling from Accra through Kumasi and the Middle Belt into the Savannah, this is a small but beautiful country we are finding challenging to spreads infrastructure across in generating jobs.
Bit this piece is not exactly about generating jobs; it is about maintaining infrastructure such that we save resources, instead of abusing scarce resources needed for other strategic sectors.
As we have come to accept, without necessarily imbibing the values, such positive measures will not only extend the lifespan of projects, but also safeguard public safety and protection of public funds.
Saving the old before acquiring the new
The Board Chairman of Engineering Council, Ghana, Dr Kwame Boakye, speaking on the matter lately, said “we always seem to like new things. They politicians talk about new roads they have built…they do not talk about the roads they have maintained. So we have to start changing the narrative [for the better],” he said.
The chairman was speaking on the sidelines of the council’s CEOs’ Breakfast meeting in Accra last Tuesday on the theme: “Engineering excellence for national development: A collective responsibility.”
Dr Boakye noted that there were not many engineers at the decision-making level in the country, saying, engineers were only made to execute plans rather than shape them, a situation, he said, stifled innovation and comprehensive problem-solving initiatives.
The chairman, therefore, advocated change, encouraging more engineers to get involved at both the local assembly and national levels.
“If nations are going to progress, they bring in engineers because engineering is about solving problems.
“Unfortunately, here, somebody else makes the decision and engineering professionals carry it along. That has to change, and we need to infuse that kind of mindset here,” he added.
On the way forward, he stressed the need for more collaboration with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission and the Ghana Standards Board to ensure excellence in engineering standards in the country.
Relevance
As he noted, engineering is the backbone of national development, serving as the engine that drove innovation, infrastructure and economic growth.
With over 2,000 graduates exiting each year the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology alone, he said, there was the need for the council to create the right environment for the young professionals to excel and contribute meaningfully to national development.
The key, he insisted, is setting vigorous standards and promoting continuous professional development, while the council safeguards the integrity, competence and public safety in engineering practice.
This, in turn, fosters accountability and excellence across the engineering landscape.
Reading from notes prepared by Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, he called for collaboration among the government, industry and academia to nurture innovation, advance research and apply engineering principles practically.
The Registrar of the Engineering Council, Isaac Bedu, explained that the objective of the meeting was to strengthen relations between the council and private sector leaders.
He added that the meeting was also to educate the CEOs on the council’s regulatory framework, standards and expectations to ensure compliance while encouraging private sector investment in engineering education, research and innovation.
Courts, hospitals, schools
Recently, we have had to repair and rehabilitate courts, hospitals and markets. Similarly, we have had to carry out some expansions at our ports and reconstruct roads and highways.
Monies that have gone into such investments have been massive, notwithstanding the saga of abuse in project delivery dates and added costs that eat into other sectors and further delay rolling of other similarly relevant projects. These include construction of SHS facilities – with communities outside Accra and Kumasi demanding their piece of the national pie.
Indeed, the crave used to be schools and hospitals as well as roads and highways; now it is fishing harbours and airports for the Volta Region, Takoradi, Sunyani and the Upper East and West. Certainly, that calls for more resources in a nation spending more than it produces in the same way workers consume more than they receive as salaries and families spend more than their incomes.
Outstanding projects
There was La General Hospital controversy and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital rehabilitation initiative that the Otumfuo himself had to lead. Across the country, the numbers of abandoned projects assailing our nation is alarming. And it has been healthy noise for the politician promising better and more.
Unfortunately, when it comes to initiative and commitment in introducing relevant, productive taxes, they are silent because we are not culturally a nation with a tax compliant culture.
The other day, a media network carried a story on projects abandoned since Dr Kwame Nkrumah; and it was saddening seeing the robustness of the infrastructure, despite its abandonment for something just new. COCOBOD, Railways and stadia facilities ranks among the list of offending and abandoned infrastructure left at the mercy of the weather across the hinterland. Navrongo in the Upper East used to have state bungalows left to rot along the highway.
I recall the saga of dogs mating and breeding in that community each time I moved up to follow up on my tomato research stints in the Tono, Pwalugu and Vea communities.
Saglemi
But we may also revisit the conversation on stalled projects, like the controversial Saglemi, in which government was short-changed terribly and annoyingly.
We may similarly cite intriguing sagas of state assets being abused and looted, including the recent brouhaha over SSNIT assets and the threat from unions to fight labour unions that reverted the games that politicians play on us.
But that is how we are turning in the English-speaking democracies. I have friends in the neighbouring Francophonie countries and they don’t behave the way our politicians here behave – grabbing and looting till they are exposed.
From Kwame Nkrumah through Dr KA Busia and Kutu Acheampong to JJR, the list of abandoned projects, including JA Kufour’s inland port at Boankra, until recently, were multiple and ridiculous.
A
In Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso where you cannot invade forest reserves and grazing lands, technocrats are saintly and sincere in their work – committed and ready to put the state first. Indeed, their banking systems are rigidly regulated and farming activities rich in accessing extension services to enhance quality and food security diktats.
That is why tomato traders will skip Vea, Pwalugu, Bongo and Tono to Kaya, Dori, Koudougou, as well as Arbole, Yako and Ouahiyagouya on the road to Mali – all in search of quality tomato at competitive prices.
Thankfully, we have our two flagbearers committing to focus on clearing abandoned projects in saving us scarce resources. Only God knows if we should trust them or dump them for the Butterfly or GUM.
But I also recall late Dr John Korola Ackah Blay-Miezah floating in 1979 a Butterfly that failed to fly because the state Electoral Commission was scared it would disrupt the political permutations to the discomfort of favoured regular, distinguished and known political parties like the PNP, UNC and Victor Owusu’s PFP. Blay Miezah’s pal it was who dragged Jake Obestebi Lamptey together with the crème de la crème of Ghana’s media across Europe on a chase for alleged massive reserves invested by Kwame Nkrumah in Swiss bank accounts. True or not, not only God and late Nkrumah would know.
Whatever the real facts were, it is still this canker of not keeping track of state assets and resources, in sustaining value for money diktats.
PS
My brotherly advice to Baka, not the former GIJ Lecturer: just remember Amartey Kwei from indigenous Accra. Where are all the GaDangmes that carried the NDC on their shoulders – ET, the Mettle-Nunoos and Adamafios?
Source:inquirernewsroom.com