Proper Planning; the Remedy to Sanitation Woes?

Governments come and go but planning problems remain the same over the decade. When people die of preventable diseases like cholera, the disappointing giggle then is whether Kwame Nkrumah erred when He declared on the Polo grounds that' the black man is capable of managing his own affairs'.

The concentration of mess, filth and unregulated developments in our cities is in crescendo, heart piercing and unspeakable. Combing through the principal streets of our cities from work to home and the secondary roads to the newly emerging neighborhoods through the central nodes of the city tells a tall story of Spatial Planning in Ghana.

The genesis of urban planning in Europe and the then civilized states during industrial revolution commenced with sociologist, engineers, and biologists. This makes planning a relatively younger profession. The first planned cities known as Acropolis, Babylon and Constantinople still remain among the cleanest in the world. In Ghana, Urban Planning was given much focus when Ghana’s population was about 6 million in the 1950's. It is rather ironical to witness that when the population of Ghana has now gotten more than double this figure, settlement planning and enforcement seem to be experiencing a historic abandonment.

Planning neglect continues to be felt in our rapidly growing cities almost every day. The government and responsible planning institutions should act now before things get out of hand. It was not by accident that the Town and Country Planning Ordinance of 1945 which became the legal framework establishing the department of Town and Country Planning came into force to regulate physical developments and in accordance with sound environmental practices. A strong and biting planning and management system can prevent poor sanitation.

The modus operandi of planning operations is the delivery of the planning goods such as local plans, structure plans and SDFs. It is when these goods are consumed on the ground through implementation that we realize the product of the planning process. The question that pricks us quickly is how many of these plans have been successfully implemented. The Western Regional Spatial Development Framework is a typical example. It was done with the support, and branded with the beautifulness it deserves but the planning product is not being realized because the planning good risks being shut in the shelves as has always been the case in Ghana.

The Secret of planning power is that, the plans tell where people are, where the industries are and where the consumption is. This gives an idea of the chain from waste generation to disposal management. It is now left with city authorities to ensure that plans are followed

The recent initiatives and transformations in planning have been donor sponsored. Government should be thinking of continuing the process should the sponsored projects come to an end. Recent initiatives like the Lands Administration Project (LAP) with LUPMP by the World Bank are timely and laudable. The conditions of Town Planning Offices were what one could describe as inept and appalling.

It remains our fervent belief and hope that if the paradigm shift fully resume in the field of planning, the sanitation problems, traffic on our roads, the slums, the pollution and the mess citywide would be minimized if not eliminated. We shouldn’t wait like the grasshopper which says more time before we are engulfed in the cholera, pollution, slums and its associated and unhealthy urban environmental conditions. Let’s plan now or we plan to fail.

ISAAC NAKOJA

Human Settlement Planner

URBAN PLANNERS ASSOCIATION OF GHANA

TAKORADI.

nakosco2005@yahoo.com