So I live in an estate, a well planned community, gated, neat streets with dustbins specially dotted on the main road by the various bungalows. I am not one of them but the place is regarded as rich people’s zone with many former ministers and a few of our well known hot shot lawyers living there.
Imagine my surprise then when I got home the other day to see a poster on my gate…the government is providing my bungalow and all others free dustbins to aid waste disposal. I was unfazed, unimpressed actually.
I already have a big dustbin at home and so does every neighbor. We have a waste disposal truck that comes round every week to collect waste….not a stray pure water sachet is lying about…that extra dustbin is useless, unnecessary, totally uncalled for policy in that area!
Then it hit me, is this being done in Chorkor, Nima, James Town, Sodom and Gomorrah, Circle, Maamobi and places where waste disposal is a big deal? Are people in the slums and ghettos who don’t have anywhere to dump rubbish but their doorstep going to get free dustbins that will be well managed and the waste collected to reduce flooding caused by improper waste disposal? Will those living around Tema Station who carry their waste and come and dispose in the gutters in broad daylight going to get these bins? Your guess is as good as mine. They are distributing waste bins at East Legon, Airport Enclave, Ogbojo, Regimanuel Estates and places where people have no need for extra dustbins since they already have about 2 at home with prepaid collection services they can afford.
When big people sit in their offices and craft policies that favour only themselves or that emanate from their fantastic, brightly colored worldview that has no understanding whatsoever of the plight of ordinary people, this is what we get.
The ocean needs water to continue being the ocean, but the desert needs even more water to keep the cactus alive for thirsty poor travellers. Let us try, no matter how good things get, not to lose sight of the very fundamental problems that plague ordinary folk, and may we not carry Chinese chop sticks to a banku and aborbitadi party in Afiadenyigba.
