Sunday 23 may was a sad day, it can be called a day of rekonning, a day of reassessing or even rethinking because of what I saw on the Swedish television channel 1.
When the programme begun the entire family took their seats on the family couch to watch news about our motherland. Yes info about Ghana and gues what? who wouldn`t like to boast about his motherland; we are this and we have that, so before we became comfortable and begun understanding what the theme was all about, we had a couple of calls to make to our norwegian friends. Hey you, turn on your TV sets and watch Ghana the black star of Africa.
The show was about water and water resource management with a special emphasis on Nima. What we saw on Nima was specially gruelling, women making food near toilets children with protruding stomachs sitting by gutters and enjoying their meals. pipelines bearing drinking water lined through gutters filled with the worst kind of filth imaginable.
We also saw poverty in its grimmest, probably the dirtiest shanty town I can think of and you know what? this made an impression on the kids who know nothing or very little about their motherland, whether it did some damage I cant tell.
A young woman was asked if it was true that inhabitants of nima were the poorest. She answered that it was not true. Thinking of it from the facial point of view, we thought she was being unrealistic and untrue! but after a while and having talked to a friend I was drawn to the attention that what she said was a point worth noting. They had at least something to do to earn a living even though in a shanty town. There are people in the villages who have lost hope, they can cook the produce from their farms and yet not find people to buy them.
The next phase of the documentary crushed me to pieces. Two latrine trucks were shown offloading raw sewage into the sea not far away from the castle and indeed not far away from the ?pleasure beaches?, a man with his bare hands opening the taps to opffload, another without boots, gloves nor masks creating a passage for the latrine to easily make its way into the sea and some two hundred metres away towards sea was a fisherman casting his net for fish, fish which will end up on many countrymens dinner table.
The producer made a comment which I couldnt better agree with him, that Ghanas beaches are amongst the dirtiest of the dirtiest on earth!
Fellow countrymen! Hello ? are you there? where are we? Hello? So far so good? How much does it actually cost for Accra and in that respect the major cities to get sewage treatment plants? How many pajero cars can we sell to get what we need for these plants to be in place, and in any case whose pajero will be the first to sell?. Maybe I should have begun by asking how much it cost to purchase a pajero. Will someone find out for me? I am choking to death with the stinky,filthy,dirty smell of the capital city of Ghana our father-motherland, the beacon of hope, civilization and prosperity, I have heard many proclaim! the star of Africa! Yes the black star of the dark continent.
Either we are a nation without priorities or we lack judgement of what we need or must be good for us. Hello, when you og to these donors conferences what do you tell or ask them? That you need pajero parts? pathetic!!!!
So many ministers were appointed by this regime for portfolios deemed a priority to the nation, which one of them is in charge here? Hellooooooooooooo?????????, are you listening, minister for the modernisation of the modern in Africa!!
Can you explain why Ghana can in this day and age live with having to lither our beaches with filth and latrine, and whiles being made a mockery on european TV channels you continue in your aircondition cars, homes, and offices? Is it not that you are afraid of coming to terms with the reality, the filth outside which is a day to day reality of the common man in the streets?
We the people demand an explanation. Explain to us why $20.000 to you and your colleagues is a priority than proper sanitation to those who elected you? If you cannot answer send an SOS to the minister for works and contracts. We demand an answer. Dont ask any tourist to come to Ghana again. NEVER EVER if you fail to give a satisfactory answer to us the down trodden.
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