Third world attitudes are low-cost, big time. You doubt it? Take a cursory look at just two examples: the way we throw garbage away by-heart (‘ba-hat) and the way we drive, recklessly. Attitudinal change is so difficult. Without a doubt, as a people, we don’t have a maintenance culture, a safety culture, a monitoring culture, and an enforcement culture. A culture underlines and defines ones way of life. It shows in traditions, practices, behaviours and attitudes. Positive ways of doing things are at the heart of a nation’s development.
Enters oil waste:
A 28th January 2011 news story filed by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, a Daily Graphic correspondent carried the headline, ‘Waste oil pollutes Axim coastline.’ In the story, it is asserted that the waste oil, also known as tar-balls, might have originated from ships that currently frequent our coastline as a result of increased activity over our crude oil find. This means that the waste did not come from Jubilee Fields. Fair enough.
But the story also mentions a major bottom-line matter: ‘The inhabitants of three communities in the Axim municipality — Amanfukumam, Akyinim and Brawire — who are mainly fishermen, cannot use their beaches as a result of the development.’ Sadly, the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) could not identify the culprit ships, implying that the ships have gotten away with what should be a criminal act against the state of Ghana. But more seriously, it also suggests that we’re either not equipped to shine our eyes, or we’re not vigilant enough to pin down offenders in this sticky crude oil business.
Clearly, oil waste is going to become a problem for Ghana, thanks to our newly found status as a commercial oil producing country. But oil waste presents an unchartered territory for us as a country. Yes, we’re very excited about the oil, but mere excitement aint’ just good enough. The fact of our matter is that we’ve never been this road before. During about forty years of the lifespan of Ghana, we were fortunate enough to have stayed in the territory of old waste, comprising of your mother’s throw-away fufuu, goat meat and fish bones – which easily decompose and become one with nature.
Then from no-where, without the courtesy of an announcement, sophisticated wastes like plastics, old computers and fridges arrived on our shores. We haven’t yet figured out how to manage these waste. We’ve been busy stuffing up our land with complicated waste. With the exception of Kumasi and Tamale, we don’t have engineered landfills. Recently, the oily twin-cities of Sekondi/Takoradi resumed the construction of an engineered landfill. The point being made here is that oil waste is an even more complicated waste and we need to sit up to ensure effective management, or else.......
For crude oil to become a blessing and not the feared curse, oil waste must be managed well in a strict, disciplined, efficient, state-of-the-art, matter-of-fact manner with absolutely no room for national foolishness. Even in the small matter of waste oil from vehicles, fitting shops continue to dump such oil indiscriminately into the earth. Cumulatively, if we should add the waste oil from all the fitting shops in Ghana, region by region, district by district, such used oil will amount to a large quantity on a national level. What is the oil waste tracking mechanism at fitting shops? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must come up with an answer to this question.
Oil waste is oil waste. If we haven’t effectively managed used oil from fitting shops, what’s the guarantee that we have what it takes to manage oil waste from ships that are just passing through Ghana, and what would directly or indirectly originate from our own God-gifted crude oil?
Oil waste is anything that is generated from the production of crude oil. This includes equipment, chemicals, oil leakage, empty barrels, batteries and sand, among many others. Imagine if a barrel of oil spills in a compound house. The oil will drift and dirty anything that comes its way including sand, walls and human beings. Cleaning up is tough and requires painstaking effort, time and money.
There should be no room for our low-cost waste management attitudes in our newly found crude oil country. Oil waste is hazardous waste, straight and simple. As a country, it has been said by many that we’re not good at enforcing our own laws, which we have in abundance – well-written with the best English even the Queen of England may not be able to muster and comprehend.
While trying to fully grasp the challenges we’re to face as a country over oil waste, either offshore in the Atlantic Ocean or what arrives onshore from for instance, oily barrels that end up in private hands and used for water storage in homes, the EPA should try a basic law enforcement regime on a disgusting matter.
EPA, sue the AMA
Not a matter of once upon a time, but rather, recently, the Mayor of Accra, Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuje, became a tax collector. He woke up one day and did the rounds of government institutions to demand what they owe the AMA in property rates – with journalists shining their publicity lights on him. This was a fantastic event. This incident probably places the Accra Mayor in the club of pace setters.
The EPA can copy this grand act of leadership and toughness and courage. Simply put, the EPA should take the AMA to court to force the hands of the assembly to live under the rule of law. Here is one of such violations. At what is known as Larvenda Hill at Korle Gorno, the AMA continues to dump untreated human excreta, raw, into the Atlantic Ocean and by that, flout the laws of Ghana with impudence, under the cover of officialdom. Eh, this happens every day and the EPA is just sitting there doing nothing, feeling helpless?
EPA, you have a simple matter in your hands. Emulate the example of the AMA by suing the very governance system of Accra, for perpetrating this grand act of environmental law violation. Force the hands of the AMA to do the right thing by and for Ghana. After setting that precedence, the EPA should head to the oily twin cities of Sekondi/Takoradi and take legal action against the Sekondi/Takoradi Municipal Assembly (STMA). Why?
Like Accra, the crude oil hub of Ghana also dumps its human waste into the same Atlantic Ocean that is gifting us crude oil. What kind of disrespect is that! An ocean gifts you a gift of a lifetime and the way you say thank you is to insult it with human excreta? With the fast increasing population of the oil city, the quantity of human waste to be dumped into the ocean will also increase.
Oh, if only the Atlantic Ocean could talk! It’s the same ocean that carried our kith and kin in chains in slave ships to work to build other people’s civilization while ours remains stuck in a development funk. But today, we violate the same ocean with our stuff. Why isn’t the EPA taking these so-called decentralized assemblies to court for such violations? We’ll watch.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com
Enters oil waste:
A 28th January 2011 news story filed by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, a Daily Graphic correspondent carried the headline, ‘Waste oil pollutes Axim coastline.’ In the story, it is asserted that the waste oil, also known as tar-balls, might have originated from ships that currently frequent our coastline as a result of increased activity over our crude oil find. This means that the waste did not come from Jubilee Fields. Fair enough.
But the story also mentions a major bottom-line matter: ‘The inhabitants of three communities in the Axim municipality — Amanfukumam, Akyinim and Brawire — who are mainly fishermen, cannot use their beaches as a result of the development.’ Sadly, the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) could not identify the culprit ships, implying that the ships have gotten away with what should be a criminal act against the state of Ghana. But more seriously, it also suggests that we’re either not equipped to shine our eyes, or we’re not vigilant enough to pin down offenders in this sticky crude oil business.
Clearly, oil waste is going to become a problem for Ghana, thanks to our newly found status as a commercial oil producing country. But oil waste presents an unchartered territory for us as a country. Yes, we’re very excited about the oil, but mere excitement aint’ just good enough. The fact of our matter is that we’ve never been this road before. During about forty years of the lifespan of Ghana, we were fortunate enough to have stayed in the territory of old waste, comprising of your mother’s throw-away fufuu, goat meat and fish bones – which easily decompose and become one with nature.
Then from no-where, without the courtesy of an announcement, sophisticated wastes like plastics, old computers and fridges arrived on our shores. We haven’t yet figured out how to manage these waste. We’ve been busy stuffing up our land with complicated waste. With the exception of Kumasi and Tamale, we don’t have engineered landfills. Recently, the oily twin-cities of Sekondi/Takoradi resumed the construction of an engineered landfill. The point being made here is that oil waste is an even more complicated waste and we need to sit up to ensure effective management, or else.......
For crude oil to become a blessing and not the feared curse, oil waste must be managed well in a strict, disciplined, efficient, state-of-the-art, matter-of-fact manner with absolutely no room for national foolishness. Even in the small matter of waste oil from vehicles, fitting shops continue to dump such oil indiscriminately into the earth. Cumulatively, if we should add the waste oil from all the fitting shops in Ghana, region by region, district by district, such used oil will amount to a large quantity on a national level. What is the oil waste tracking mechanism at fitting shops? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must come up with an answer to this question.
Oil waste is oil waste. If we haven’t effectively managed used oil from fitting shops, what’s the guarantee that we have what it takes to manage oil waste from ships that are just passing through Ghana, and what would directly or indirectly originate from our own God-gifted crude oil?
Oil waste is anything that is generated from the production of crude oil. This includes equipment, chemicals, oil leakage, empty barrels, batteries and sand, among many others. Imagine if a barrel of oil spills in a compound house. The oil will drift and dirty anything that comes its way including sand, walls and human beings. Cleaning up is tough and requires painstaking effort, time and money.
There should be no room for our low-cost waste management attitudes in our newly found crude oil country. Oil waste is hazardous waste, straight and simple. As a country, it has been said by many that we’re not good at enforcing our own laws, which we have in abundance – well-written with the best English even the Queen of England may not be able to muster and comprehend.
While trying to fully grasp the challenges we’re to face as a country over oil waste, either offshore in the Atlantic Ocean or what arrives onshore from for instance, oily barrels that end up in private hands and used for water storage in homes, the EPA should try a basic law enforcement regime on a disgusting matter.
EPA, sue the AMA
Not a matter of once upon a time, but rather, recently, the Mayor of Accra, Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuje, became a tax collector. He woke up one day and did the rounds of government institutions to demand what they owe the AMA in property rates – with journalists shining their publicity lights on him. This was a fantastic event. This incident probably places the Accra Mayor in the club of pace setters.
The EPA can copy this grand act of leadership and toughness and courage. Simply put, the EPA should take the AMA to court to force the hands of the assembly to live under the rule of law. Here is one of such violations. At what is known as Larvenda Hill at Korle Gorno, the AMA continues to dump untreated human excreta, raw, into the Atlantic Ocean and by that, flout the laws of Ghana with impudence, under the cover of officialdom. Eh, this happens every day and the EPA is just sitting there doing nothing, feeling helpless?
EPA, you have a simple matter in your hands. Emulate the example of the AMA by suing the very governance system of Accra, for perpetrating this grand act of environmental law violation. Force the hands of the AMA to do the right thing by and for Ghana. After setting that precedence, the EPA should head to the oily twin cities of Sekondi/Takoradi and take legal action against the Sekondi/Takoradi Municipal Assembly (STMA). Why?
Like Accra, the crude oil hub of Ghana also dumps its human waste into the same Atlantic Ocean that is gifting us crude oil. What kind of disrespect is that! An ocean gifts you a gift of a lifetime and the way you say thank you is to insult it with human excreta? With the fast increasing population of the oil city, the quantity of human waste to be dumped into the ocean will also increase.
Oh, if only the Atlantic Ocean could talk! It’s the same ocean that carried our kith and kin in chains in slave ships to work to build other people’s civilization while ours remains stuck in a development funk. But today, we violate the same ocean with our stuff. Why isn’t the EPA taking these so-called decentralized assemblies to court for such violations? We’ll watch.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com
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