Poor emergency response management, poor emergency coordination, unacceptable performance by public servants and above all lip-service to important matters of state by politicians at the helm. These descriptions represent the picture of the Accra Newtown disaster.
Following the incident, fire tenders proceeded to the location at a time when appropriate equipment were not even on the ground, leaving a situation akin to a Gazan neighbourhood just after an Israeli bombing run, as residents with bare hands try to salvage what was left of their properties amid distant voices of entrapped survivors.
2026 Ghana and we countenance this kind of scenario to the extent that a helpless survivor, according to an eyewitness, begs for water.
In any case, why was a report about the unsafe state of the building not worked upon? So it did not prick the conscience of a public servant at the relevant ministry or even Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) whose funding dearth is responsible for the abandoned state of the project to act?
Are we serious in this country?
It was much later, after the collapse that some personalities showed up at the location, confused and helplessness inscribed on their faces. Valuable time elapsed before some of them got their thinking caps and to fashion out better emergency management responses. Where to go for the appropriate equipment? They did not know immediately that the 48 Engineer Regiment through the Chief of Army Staff could prove valuable under the circumstances. By the time order was even restored at the location, lives had been lost and injuries sustained.
So who looked on unconcerned as the worshippers used the dilapidated structure, protruding iron ore et al, for their Sunday worship sessions?
There are many structures in more serious state of disrepair in parts of Accra which have been overlooked and serving as abodes for families.
Elsewhere, resources are made available to demolish structures in a part of Accra where local art and craft stuff are sold because some Chinese businessmen want to put up a mall.
Bylaws, enforcement and oversights are simply ineffective or even non-existent. It is standard practice to have municipal and district assembly building inspectors use red paint to invite owners of ongoing projects to ‘come and see them.’
A day after the incident, soldiers stood guard at the disaster site as tipper trucks moved debris from the location. We wonder why the police whose function should be this were left out. Law enforcement and the maintenance of order is the responsibility of the police not soldiers. The military only come in to support the civil police and where the latter is being overwhelmed by the magnitude of a security situation. The Accra Newtown situation, especially a day after the incident, presents no such security challenge to warrant the sidelining of the police.
An enquiry will be ordered as usual in the aftermath of such emergencies, but characteristically the bound copies of the emanating report will join others in the shelves of relevant ministries to gather dust. Welcome to Ghana.