CITY ON ITS KNEES

“And they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth”
Genesis 11:4

June 3rd, 2015 will remain a very regrettable date for many families across Ghana for a very long time to come. In the immediate aftermath of the flooding and the fire disaster, there were loud cries for the city ‘mayor’ to resign or be fired. I was part of those making such calls. Never mind that our cry went unheeded just as the many other tears before it. The Mayor in an attempt to salvage face moved in to Old Fadama with bulldozers to demolish the illegal settlements there. Never mind that there was no proper resettlement plan. Around my ‘hometown’ that is how things are done! Few of the folks were given a token to return to their hometowns. Never mind that, some took the money and didn’t go.

I had cause to be in Accra this week for an urgent meeting. Never mind I spent over two hours in traffic from Kasoa to Airport to attend my meeting of twenty minutes at the Foreign Affairs ministry. After the brief meeting at the ministry, I was in no mood to endure traffic so I decided to take a stroll to the Accra mall. It was inside the mall that I realized one thing; the Mayor of Accra cannot do very much to salvage the city of Accra. The perennial flooding of Accra won’t be solved by just demolishing structures on waterways. We could actually use re-engineering to solve that problem without the demolishing of structures. Accra’s problem is a reflection of the skewed development model we have been pursuing since independence.

Mildly put, Accra is simply overstretched, overpopulated and underdeveloped. We cannot blame the Mayor whilst ignoring the development model responsible for the influx of large sections of the rural population of Ghana to Accra. The genesis of this sick development model, I must concede, predates the fourth republic. It started in colonial times and was consolidated by the Nkrumah regime. (See Nii Amu Darko-The Accra Problem)

Amazingly enough, Accra occupies less than 0.5% of the land mass of Ghana. How can we be running a whole country from such a small piece of land? The answer lays therein, devolution of power from Accra. Never mind that is not my focus today. The 2010 census reveals a rather more disturbing statistics. “The average national population density in the 2010 census was 103, and that for Greater Accra was 1236. That is GAR has 12 times more people on any measured piece of land than the rest of the nation. In 1984 and 2000, the population density for GAR was 441 and 895 respectively. Obviously, this rate of growth is not sustainable” ( Nii Amu Darko-The Accra Problem)

Nii Amu even goes further to intimate that the fundamental problem of Accra is ‘Political congestion’ which naturally leads to ‘political desolation’ of other parts of Ghana. This consequently brings about‘internal brain drain and intellectual congestion’ in Accra. I couldn’t agree more with him. But, granted even that, the current political structure (centered in Accra) remains we could do a great deal of service to Accra by devolving economic power and opportunity.

How do you expect investors to move to the countryside when all the people with the economic power are congregated in Accra? Why do we build the head office of Cocobod in Accra? Never mind, we don’t grow cocoa in Accra. Why do we have the head offices of all the major players in the oil and gas sector in Accra? Never mind that, Sekondi-Takoradi, Cape Coast or even Tarkwa would have been a far better option.

According to the Ghana Living Standards Survey 6 (GLSS), every two out of three Ghanaians who move from their home regions end up in Greater Accra. Yes that is the reality of Ghana’s political economy. Never mind that, the issue of economic inequality has never featured in all elections in this fourth republic and may never feature for quite a long time to come. Aren’t we an interesting people? We Ghanaians are very interesting.

It is about time, we realize for as long as the game centers in Accra, majority of our young folks will be trooping there. Keeping the development model that prevents an equitable distribution of economic opportunities and power isn’t only hilarious but also foolhardy. It is equally nonsensical to keep resources and economic power in one geographical area and expect the vast majority of your citizens not to ‘migrate’ there.
For as long as we keep neglecting agricultural development and the rural economy, we will be inviting the combined labour force of our country to Accra, which offers better economic opportunities than all other parts of the country. Never mind, the rural economy offers absolutely any tangible and real opportunities for the young people ready and willing to work. Whilst thinking about this, just remind yourself that there is a limit to which any land mass can accommodate the size of human population.
It is about time we find the antidote to this menace. The solution lies in what I describe as a comprehensive rural development strategy coupled with a robust industrialization policy.