Fixing Ghana In Accra
We wish to congratulate the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey and the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) for their indefatigable efforts in restoring Accra to befit its status as the nation’s capital.
The feat of finally relocating the onion market from Agbogbloshie in Central Accra to a new site, Adjen Kotoku in the Ga West Municipality, is worth commending. For those who do not understand what fixing a country is like, let them take a look at the unfolding development taking place under the new Greater Accra Regional Minister.
Many doubted the minister’s success, their stance steeped in the fact that others before him failed to achieve the feat.
We, are aware about the subterranean efforts by some politicians whose project it was to have the traders create a scene so that the government will get a bad name.
This is how low some politicians can stoop and yet want Ghanaians to take them seriously in the matter of development.
They even chant with a political coloration ‘fix the country’ yet they stand in the way of all things getting fixed.
The minister undeterred, went ahead with the project of relocating the onion sellers and here we are today with government providing an amount of GH¢500,000 to the affected traders to cater for their transportation cost to the new location.
The relocation will undoubtedly contribute towards the easing of congestion in the Central Business District of Accra. This will ease the current location for development of that part of the city. This is what fixing a country is all about.
We often hear people making references to the neatness of cities like Kigali in Rwanda as they cynically juxtapose this with our own Accra. These persons will however stand in the way of sincere politicians who undertake developments through such relocations, so slums will disappear from our urban landscapes.
The sight of articulated trucks laden with onions as they meander their way to the Agbogbloshie market in the Central Business District does not help the free flow of traffic in Accra.
Only an able political leadership will think a way out of the filth which has remained a feature of many parts of the nation’s capital for decades.
Former President Kufuor will heave a sigh of relief when the onion sellers finally take occupancy of the modern market built for them in the next few days. He thought out the project and executed it but his successors failed to show the needed leadership and political will to have the traders relocated.
In 1960 or so, former President Kwame Nkrumah in the face of perennial flooding of the Fadama area, the name by which the area the onion market now at Agbogbloshie is was known, relocated the residents of the place to New Fadama.
It was difficult but he pressed on and today New Fadama residents who were relocated from the previous slum are thankful for Kwame Nkrumah’s decision.
In Koforidua, the Eastern regional capital, Â Col Minyila, a one-time Commissioner for the Eastern Region decided to relocate Zongo residents living right in the centre of the town to a new site. Although the residents objected to the decision then, today they are grateful for the decision.
One day, the onion traders and others now being relocated to the new place will express gratitude to government and the Greater Accra Regional Minister for the well thought out project to relocate them.