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
