Hello readers of rawgist.com…this rant is the beginning of several others titled “Knowing Ghana”.
It is amazing how Ghanaians do not want people criticizing Ghana. But I’m criticizing just as an equally guilty citizen who in most cases has no immediate antidote to the compound complex problems and challenges facing our motherland.
That said, I hope you are slightly pacified in advance. Ok..now let me help you know Ghana in it’s ugliest and also most beautiful forms.
Have you realized how in Ghana, the most important basics are left to the uneducated and the largely unqualified?
Think of our transport industry for instance. How many people set off to become drivers at the end of their tertiary education. How many institutions are available for the training of professional commercial drivers?
So the typical scenario is that in which a bus full of educated folks and some of our national best brains is being driven by one driver who dropped out of school very early on the education ladder. Drivers who are not driving because they are passionate about a career in driving but rather because life dealt them a heavy blow and they had to become conductors from which the natural progression was to become a driver.
The consequent of such being that, many do not have an understanding of the road, road signs and even the vehicle itself and how it functions. Many drive on the “high” of the confidence they have acquired after a set period of driving.
They refuse advise and kick in their ego at the least issue-Precisely the situation many patrons of commercial vehicles in Ghana encounter daily.
We are quick to tout air travel as the safest or one of the safest but do not ponder why it is so. Is it merely that the aeroplane is a superior machine compared to the car or bus? I believe it is because of the initial and ongoing training given to the pilots to not only fly the plane but also maintain it and ensure everything on their checklist is in proper order.
We leave it to “whom it may concern” and hope it works. And yet complain about the numerous road traffic accidents prevalent in Ghana. I believe not everyone can become a driver, especially a commercial driver.
Until we do something about this, no amount of peripheral effort put in by road safety campaigners will amount to a total solution.
The same logic applies to several other aspects of our economy. Take a look around you and see the people who sell food. No education about what they do. No idea the chemicals they are employing and what quantities are safe and what should not even be done. No wonder food sellers are now spraying insecticides to ward of house flies at the same time people are eating. And we have a difficulty understanding why Ghanaians are dying young?
Please drop your comments on this article and Please send your “Knowing Ghana” articles to bernardbuachi@gmail.com for publishing on this site
