Cleaning Accra's mess
Ghana’s sprawling capital city Accra is heading for lockdown with increasing numbers of urban migration and stalled mass development projects. Accra is being chocked by people, garbage, and environmental waste. In short, Accra is fast becoming one big slum.
Accra, situated on the Atlantic coast is Ghana’s capital city and its commercial hub. With a population of about five million people, it is Ghana’s largest city and Africa’s twelfth largest metropolitan area.
Over the years, Accra has transformed itself into a modern city; but this modern city hides a very dark secret. In the corners of the city, in the backstreets and in the places far away from many city dwellers lie other growing communities.
These are the forgotten communities, the denied communities, the communities the authorities find offensive and have for many years tried to get rid of. Yet hard as they try, these communities thrive and grow fuelled by a steady influx of rural folks heading to the city to seek for pastures that seem green but are truly filled with venom.
The slums are gradually taking over the city. From the largest Slum in Accra, Sodom and Gomorrah to places like Babylon, Ecomog, Liberia and the Gutter communities along the main drainage systems in Accra, the city is losing its battle to develop and grow into a world class city.
What accounts for the growth of these slums in the city? And why does it seem that City authorities are losing the fight to stop the rather rapid expansion of these slums?
Government’s inability to strengthen the decentralization process and create wealth generating programmes in the districts and regions and a lack of fundamental facilities for education, health and business are reasons why hundreds make the journey to Accra each day.
The city provides incentives that many other communities do not provide and city authorities are dazed by the sheer numbers that make the trip.
Slums are normally run down communities with substandard housing, poor facilities, no potable water, no electricity, poor drainage and waste management systems.
According to a recent survey conducted by a United Nations Environmental Agency, a third of people living in Accra live in slums. This figure is estimated at about 1.8 million Ghanaians.
The recent demolition exercise by city authorities and the desire by the Metropolitan assembly to curb the fast growing menace took a rather interesting turn when, the assembly decided to abandon its tough stance on the exercise.
With a shortage of 1.5 million housing units and urban migration increasing, Accra is seriously hanging on a shoe string.
Many have complained of the growing indiscipline, lawlessness and crime ravaging the city; but the finger seems to point to the slums where it is said that criminals and the like hide to avoid being tracked and arrested.
What is the alternative? How do we keep a steady pace up the middle income ladder? With so many moving down in search of their proverbial gold bar, we need to step up as a nation and find solutions to the many challenges that beset our capital city.
Suggestions include creating a new capital city, to improve decentralization, to improve housing and create industries in the rural community. All these are good but presently, the city hangs in a balance and the tilt is getting steeper by the day. We just may slip if we do not correct the canker now.
By: JOT Agyeman, e.tv Ghana
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