Monday, 31 December 2012

Mediocrity is killing Ghanaians



There are two main criminals in Ghana; teachers and nurses. But now I must add the average Ghanaian to that list. The average Ghanaian consists of the pharmacists, taxi drivers, caterers, and builders. These are people who would more likely take decisions to harm another rather than not. Let’s take builders. Builders or those who work on the construction sites take decisions on a daily basis to steal materials from the site that they are paid to develop. But they don’t just steal cement. They steal iron rods. The iron rods are needed to keep the buildings erect, strong and safe. There is no building without the rods..it’s only a matter of time until the building collapses.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this blog today. Last night I read that an 11 year old boy has lost his life in the Brong Ahafo Region after his school wall collapsed on him. The title of the article read, “The Price of Education.” This title is fitting. Not only did that boy have to worry about his teachers not showing up, lack of materials, lack of space, but now parents must also worry about walls collapsing on their children while at school.
Who will answer to this boy’s parents? Or the parents of the little girl who was hit by lightning while schooling in an uncompleted building. Or the parents of the children who are waiting for the contractors to complete the school they were paid to build.                                              There will be no answers because the “average” Ghanaian does not respect the ones he is paid to work on behalf of. The parents will get the casual “I beg” and the “authorities” would have called it a day. The school has continued lessons under the tree. It has not closed down for reparations and further construction.
This is not the first time this year that a building collapsed in Ghana. We have all heard of the Melcom Supershop disaster. That mayhem claimed more than 20 lives. Those numbers may be even higher since the initial numbers of possible victims was false.

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