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| before the collapse |
Depending on
which local media reports from Ghana you’ve accessed in the past week, a 4, 5
or 6 storey building partly being used as a shopping mall crushed to pulp
leaving rubble that suggests, nay definitely smacks of substandard construction
work.
Having personally experienced the numbing
consequences of the “priceless” handiwork of the most celebrated estates
company in Ghana with a record of almost yearly awards for industry excellence,
I was truely upset by the incident.
Pickaxes,
shovels, spades, cranes and bare hands were deployed quickly at the scene of
the disaster for the rescue operation. Aside the bare hands our tools for the
rescue operation sent shivers down my spine as I imagined the possibility of
victims being gored in the eye, in the sides, or crushed by the very same
rescue tools. The Israelis must have felt the same. A day after the disaster, 18
of them were flown in to our aid armed with sniffer dogs and other “special
equipment”.
Thankfully 50 victims of the disaster had already been removed from
the rubble safely by the time they got in. Personnel from almost all the
security agencies were at hand supported by probably all the ambulances and
operational stretchers, private and public in the city. Concerned citizens bought
sachet water and threw them into the wreckage for the trapped, screaming and
thirsty victims.
The incident happened Wednesday November 7 before 10am and
going by the claim of the shop owners that business was yet to begin that day and
that only about 52 workers were likely to be in the building at the time, the
search for survivors should have ended on the same day. At the last count on
Monday 12, about 85 people out of which 14 have been pronounced dead, had been
taken from the wreckage and the search is only now winding down.
Elsewhere, on the eve of the
recent US presidential election Superstorm Sandy hit the US. It wasn’t pretty -
about 2 million people were reported with no electricity and some 40, 000 New
Yorkers faced evacuation - and I thought the election would be postponed or
something. I was wrong, Sandy did not happen in my backyard. I am pretty
certain the events of Wednesday November 7 would have halted our elections
slated for December. But off course I couldn’t possibly be suggesting we could be
measured by the US’s capacity to weather the storms (no pun intended); just the
sobering realization that we aren’t ready for just about anything, death being the exception.
Yesterday the
subject matter for Talking Point, a current affairs discussion
program on Ghana Television was off course the national disaster that brought the election campaigns to a halt, albeit temporarily. A panelist was
saying that there is no authority that registers private construction firms/
contractors in Ghana and that must be corrected. Another suggested the need to
determine the chain of command in rescue operations as we were confronted with
in the current incident. Yet another cautioned against apportioning blame until
it becomes clear what contributed to the disaster. The discussion was filled
with many “we have tos” and “we try tos”.
The metropolitan
boss says the building had no permit and practitioners in the construction industry
are suggesting that the building that crushed seems to have been the product of
inferior materials in the hands of unqualified builders. The president has said that those culpable in this
incident will face the music but beyond that, it seems to me the real culprit
is the state.
Where is the
institutional framework that ensures such buildings never come into being in
the first place; that defines and ensures minimum standards in the construction
industry; that monitors and penalizes substandard work; that ensures redress
for citizens who suffer the ills of industry players and indeed that ensures
that those who receive awards for excellence do indeed meet the standards of
quality? This calls for deep reflection; the kind that results from the self-assessment of a humbled people.
So to the
presidential candidates at the next debate and particularly the one who claims his
vision is to get (state) institutions to work again: How will your government
strengthen the institutional framework for disaster management in Ghana? While you
think about it, please be advised to refrain from suggesting that your vice presidential candidate will head an institution to be set up to deal with it. That solution has been spent, thank you.
