Let’s Stop The Expansion Of Accra....

By Encouraging Accelerated Development Of The Regions And Regional Capitals

By Otchere Darko

[*Readers who are not sure about this writer and get confused about his name and identity may please read the information placed at the bottom of this article.]

Accra has expanded, and continues to expand very fast. This by itself would not be bad, had the city been originally planned for that. Having not incorporated such rapid expansion in its original planning, Accra has become overwhelmed by problems that are too challenging for the Mayor and his staff in their effort to transform it into a modern metropolis. The rapid expansion has created, and continues to create serious urban problems that include haphazard and unreliable supply of public utilities like water, electricity and telephone networks. It has also led to the creation of slums and ghettoes, majority of which are found in centrally located areas that cannot escape the attention of visitors and tourist who come to the city. There is therefore an urgent need for the expansion to be halted, both territorially and demographically, to enable the metropolis to be transformed and given modern character and qualities that befit its status as the capital city of Ghana. Halting the expansion has to be confronted from three main angles.

The first of the three angles is through private estate developers who currently focus their estate development activities mainly on Greater-Accra. These developers should be encouraged to shift their focus from Greater-Accra to other regions and regional capitals. Private estate developers are known to be instrumental, not only for private estate development but also for general infrastructural development and supply of vital social and public amenities and utilities. Extensive and rapid regional estate development therefore has the added bonus of currently bringing about regional infrastructural development and improvements that act as powerful magnet for attracting regional investments and businesses that in turn create employment for local population, and help keep them within local communities. To encourage private estate developers to shift focus of estate development from Greater-Accra to the regions and regional capitals in Ghana, chiefs and central government must play enticing roles. Chiefs who, generally speaking, are the custodians of community lands in Ghana must fast-track matters relating to the sale and leasing of lands in their traditional areas. They must also keep prices or other forms of consideration for land sales and leases in their communities low enough to attract estate developers. Central government must encourage estate developers to shift to the regions by giving them tax incentives. It must also ensure that matters concerning the processing of documents on transfer of land titles are handled fast, meticulously and incorruptibly by the various Regional Lands Commissioners.

Secondly, there is need for private investors and businessmen who tend to concentrate their investments and businesses in Accra to be incentivised to locate as many new investments and businesses as possible in the regions and regional capitals so as to break the culture of concentrating investments and businesses in Accra and its environs. As it is with estate development, both chiefs and central government need to provide the kind of incentives that can encourage new and old investors and businessmen to locate their new investments and businesses in the regions and regional capitals. Chiefs must provide cheap, easy-to-acquire and litigation-free commercial lands to would-be investors and businessmen. Central government must also use tax incentive and fast-tracked land documentation assurances to lure investors and businessmen to move investment and business focus to the nine relatively deprived regions and regional capitals of Ghana.

Thirdly, there is need for the creation of a new system of decentralised local administration within which local authorities in all parts of Ghana have enough power and resources to plan, execute and control local development in all local areas within their administration. For this to happen, there is absolute need for full devolution of power and resources from central government to local people through their local representatives. By full devolution, I am referring to a transfer of power and resources that goes far beyond what is provided under the so-called “decentralisation” mentioned under Chapter 20 of the 1992 Constitution, and which still allows us to operate the same unitary system of government in Ghana. In one of my earlier articles, I described the kind of decentralisation provided under Chapter 20 of our current constitution as “half-baked bread” that can fill the stomach, but which lacks the quality needed to make it fully fit for healthy human consumption. What Chapter 20 of the 1992 Constitution provides does not constitute “local government”. It merely provides de-concentration of central government administration through a form of delegation that incorporates “elements” intended to give appearance and flavour of power-transfer to local people...... but which power-transfer excludes the transfer of the “real power” that makes local people masters of their destiny. To remedy the weaknesses in the current system, there must be full devolution of power and resources from central government to local people. This requires: (1) that local people elect ALL their assembly men and women through local elections; (2) that all MMDCEs are elected by local people through local elections; (3) that local authorities comprising of elected local assembly men and women and elected chief executive officers raise from local sources about 75% of funds needed to meet their developmental and administrative budgets, with the remaining 25% added by central government as government subvention; (4) that central government exercises only limited supervisory roles over local authorities, in the form of general parliamentary regulation and national executive coordination and facilitatory guidance of local government activities by the Minister of Local Government, while leaving to local people reasonable freedom to develop their local communities as best as they wish and in accordance with local circumstances, needs and priorities; while also leaving administrative control over, and exaction of public accountability from elected MMDCEs and assembly men and women in the hands of local bodies and officials to exercise in accordance with local rules and regulations; and, finally, leaving ultimate control over, and exaction of public accountability from local authorities in the hands of local people to exercise through the use of the power of the ballot box.

Ghanaian youth who migrate from all regions of Ghana to Greater-Accra do so because of work, mainly, and also of because of accessibility of other socio-economic facilities that are heavily concentrated in Accra and its environs........ such as the relatively high concentration of tarred roads and streets, good schools and colleges, good health care facilities, modern housing, other social amenities, public utilities, etc. If people in other regions of Ghana, especially those in the three northern regions, could easily get within their local communities all these benefits that are concentrated in Greater-Accra Region, very few of them, if any, would leave their own regions to move to, and settle in Accra. The problems of Accra have been created by over-concentration of development here and around it. Only a reversal of this over-concentration can halt the uncontrolled and ugly expansion of Accra, and allow the Mayor and his team to transform it into a modern city befitting its status as Ghana’s capital.

Source: Otchere Darko; [Personal Political Views.]

*About the Author:

[This appendage is for the information of only readers who get confused about this particular writer because of the name he uses, and who therefore need to know more about him or about the name he uses. Ignore this appendage, if you are not one of such readers. *This writer is just one of hundreds, and possibly thousands of Ghanaians who use the name “Otchere Darko”, either on its own, or in combination with other names. Some users spell this same name as “Okyere Darko”, while other users conjoin it with the help of a hyphen to become one single compound name, “Otchere-Darko” or “Okyere-Darko”, depending on which spelling-mode they choose. This writer, who has officially used this ‘simple name’ from his school days in the sixties into the seventies and continues to use it officially to this very day, attended the School of Administration of University of Ghana where he finally left in September 1977, the year that students embarked on the “UNIGOV” demonstration. He has never before, or after September 1977 been a student of the Ghana Law School. Up to the end of 1981, he worked as a senior public servant in, and for one of the mainstream Ministries in Ghana. He is not working for, and has never worked at the Danquah Institute. He is currently also not a member of NPP, or of any other party in Ghana. He is not related to any practising Ghanaian politician who uses this same or other name. *May readers concerned, please, take note of this exhaustive clarification and stop drawing wrong conclusions that sometimes lead them to attack a wrong person. Thank you for taking note.]