Who pays the price

With pain I recall Wednesday 7th November, 2012. If

memory serves me right I was preparing for my last study session of the week


since my “weekend” starts on Wednesday evening. Back to the morning of that


Wednesday, at exactly 9:30 am the rumour making the rounds was that a


six-storey building housing the Melcom mass retail shop in the suburbs of


Achimota had collapsed and that people were trapped beneath the rubble. I must


admit that on that morning I didn’t have the benefit of watching/listening to


“credible news” of any kind be it in the print and/or electronic media. As fate


would have it, it happened exactly a month to the 2012 General Elections and


crucially at an important time of campaigning hence the blame game was played


fully and “properly”. The sitting President, then the NDC Presidential


candidate in the 2012 general elections had to stop his campaigning in the


Northern parts of the country to attend to the disaster and yet his detractors


and political opponents couldn’t help but to associate the President with the


disaster by virtue of the fact that his name and that of the departmental store


both start with an “M”.





Tellingly, political promises followed. Firstly, the


President said “Whoever is responsible for this negligence here will pay a


price” in a media briefing after a short tour of the scene of the accident.


Secondly, the then NPP Member of Parliament for Okai Koi North, Mrs. Elizabeth


Sackey, disclosed to Joy News that she has reliably been informed, when she


enquired from the building inspector for the area, that the building has no


permit and she further promised “…,So I told him that I am going to take them


on as a Member of Parliament for the area”. Thirdly, the mayor of Accra


Metropolitan Assembly, Alfred Vanderpuye confirmed on Joy FM’s Top Story


Wednesday, hours after the incident, that the six-storey building has no

permit. He also said his outfit has been combing Accra for the past two years just


to find buildings without permits, “but how we missed this one, we are going to


find out”. On that same morning, the Melcom group wrote on their facebook page


“We are doing everything possible to see that help reaches those who need it.


Our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies goes to the families of those


who may have lost their lives", and finally we turn to our President who


is reported to have given a strong indication that the person whose negligence


caused the collapse of the shopping complex would be dealt with.





Fast forward to November 12, 2012 and the BBC News


had this headline ‘Melcom shop collapse in Ghana: Search for bodies ends’ and


the news continued as follows “Rescue efforts at the multi-storey shopping


centre that collapsed in Ghana's capital, Accra, last week have ended,


officials have said. The final death toll was 14, not 18 as initially reported


by rescuers, while 67 people survived, the officials said. Faulty construction


has been blamed for Wednesday's collapse of the Melcom store, which opened


earlier this year. The owner of the building and the local government


official in charge of building standards have been detained.” Internationally,


a similar scenario with a death toll 100 times that of the Melcom disaster and


with approximately 400 times the number of survivors. One may ask what happened


next? Political promises? Actions backing the words? The main question here is


who paid the price in Bangladesh after the Rana Plaza disaster? Similar


scenario and I quote the head of the Bangladeshi Fire Service and Civil


Defence, Ahmed Ali Khan when he said; of the 8-storey building “the upper 4


floors had been built without a permit”. In the immediate aftermath of the


collapse, the Dhaka city development authority filed a case against the owners

of the building and the five garment factories operating inside it. It didn’t


end there as four days after the building collapsed, the owner of the Rana


Plaza, Sohel Rana, was arrested at Benapole, on the


Indo-Bangladeshi border, in Jessore District by


security forces and on 10th June, seven inspectors were suspended and accused


of negligence for renewing the licenses of garment factories in the building


that collapsed. A host of international garment and/or clothing stores severed


their ties with garment factories in Bangladesh citing the slavery-like working


conditions in these factories but certainly we all agree that all these actions


were prompted by the collapse of the building.





The


price has been paid, not only by the owner of the building and factories housed


within the building but by garment factories across the country. Many textile


factories had to shut due to unrests in the immediate aftermath of the collapse


and many buildings were closed down in what the Government described as


enforcing stricter regulations with regards to buildings and structures in


Bangladesh.





Of course families of the 14 victims


of the Melcom disaster who lost their lives have received GH¢10,000 each from


government and there are is the Melcom Disaster Fund established by the AMA to


be disbursed to the families of the 14 victims anytime the fund gets to


GH¢100,000 thanks to the seed money of GH¢30,000, GH¢10,000 and GH¢25,000


respectively from the AMA, Zoomlion and the management of Melcom but the


question that lingers in the minds and hearts of people is will that be enough

price to pay? Is it always about the money? Measures must be enforced to make


sure such a disaster does not befall us ever again. One might point out that


two people were arrested, building owner Nana Nkansah Boadu Ayeboafo and the


Municipal Head of the Works Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly


(AMA), Karl Henry Clerke in the 24 hours after the collapse but their being


granted a bail within the next 24 hours also shows that clearly we are waiting


for justice to take its rightful course. On the basis of the President’s


promise, I and indeed all Ghanaians are waiting for those who are going to pay


the price and secondly I am waiting to hear parliament raise that issue even


though the current MP for Okai Koi North constituency happens to be a different


one to the MP that made the earlier promise late last year but one might argue


that since the ex-MP and the current MP are from the same party, the issue


shall be raised in parliament as promised by the ex-MP. I for one would love to


see the issue raised in parliament by the current MP of the Okai Koi North


regardless of party affiliations since we have a democratic government that is


to see to the welfare of all Ghanaians without any prejudice to racial, religious


and political affiliations. 14 human lives have been sacrificed and no amount


of money is enough to replace that and safety at the work place is what we


demand as tax-paying hard working Ghanaians. The AMA boss is yet to come good


on his promise of finding out how they missed the Melcom Building in their


search and identification of buildings without permit and the Melcom group is


yet to honour the memory of the 14 dead workers. I have consistently made it


clear that money is not enough and Melcom needs to immortalise the dead so that


it serves as a remainder to what might befall us as a nation whenever we focus


on making money at the expense of safety at the workplace.

The


whole of Ghana awaits and unanimously we continue to ask “Who Pays the Price?”











References





http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=255667





http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=255671





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20280712





http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=257290





http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=257255





http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/16/us-bangladesh-collapse-idUSBRE95F0I220130616





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22513861





By Mohammed Haruna-Rasheed.aronzy@hotmail.com