Stay home until government provides a boat – MP to pupils at Faana

The Member of Parliament for Ngleshi/Amanfrom, Sylvester Tetteh says pupils in Faana in the Greater Accra Region where nine children lost their lives recently in a boat accident should stay at home until government provides a boat to transport them to and from school.

His comment comes in the wake of criticism by the Assembly member for the area against him and the government for failing to honour their promise to provide life jackets for the children after the accident.

Weeks after the incident, kids in Faana are still ferried to school in boats without life jackets or an outboard motor as promised.

But speaking on Morning Starr on Starr FM, the MP for the area, Sylvester Tetteh said the matter should not be reduced to the provision of life jackets as government is working on the construction of a boat that will ferry the pupils to school and back home.

He’s therefore asked the pupils to stay home until the boat is provided.

“We should not reduce this whole thing to providing life jacket alone, that will solve the problem. We are of the opinion that kids of this nature should not be made to be put in a boat and say that we have life jackets so they will go to school without any assistance from parents or anybody older. The boat they used is not a dedicated boat, the person was just a passerby and they had to jump on it. It is better if they wait for us to get it right. We are clear in our minds what we are going to do.”

“I didn’t take the decision alone, all of us sat through and thought it wise that look, this is what what we can do for people to be able to account for whatever we are doing. There are older people who commute and go to school, and I’m aware that life jackets have been provided per the NADMO report they gave me. I’m saying that when it is not well coordinated you may take the life jacket to the place today but how are they going to commute and don’t forget we have kids, as young as one to four years. It is better that these kids stay at home and get things properly done than for them to be put on a boat they don’t know where it’s from, it’s not dedicated for their education,” Hon. Sylvester Tetteh told Host Francis Abban.

Nine school children of Faana, a suburb of Bortianor in the Ga South Municipality of the Greater Accra Region drowned on Wednesday, May 11, 2023, when the boat transporting them to across an estuary capsized.

The deceased children and 3 survivors were returning home from school at Wiaboman a community near Dansoman when they met their untimely death. None of them was wearing a life jacket.