Haiti Rant

When there is a disaster, everyone jumps on the humanitarian bandwagon. The current aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti is a glaring case in point. Brangelina have held a news conference to pledge their support...



According to the BBC, the relief efforts are more large scale than for any other disaster in history. The UN has asked for $562m in aid monies to help the country over the next 6 months.

People are desperate and dying. The media is assaulting the world with the gory images of bodies and mangled survivors.



What cold-hearted wretches would not see the humanitarian aspect of this disaster, and reach out in whatever way they could, to assist?

What the world neglects, because it’s too accusatory, is the reality of what led to a disaster of this scale. Accountability is thrown out the window with the first picture of an injured or orphaned child on the side of the road.

The fact that Haiti often tops the list as the world’s most corrupt country has not been big news during this crisis. Of course it hasn’t – we are busy trying to save innocent lives, and get the basics of food and water to a desperate population.

But after the dust has settled, will the same people who are gathering the millions to pump into Haiti, be as concerned as to how it’s spent and where it goes?

Will they investigate the fact that, according to seismologists, the death toll in the earthquake will reach figures of over 50,000, “in large part because of corruption and resulting shoddy construction practices in the poor Caribbean nation”. Port au Prince is possibly one of the worst constructed cities on earth. It has been called 'a disaster waiting to happen." And then it did. Who is surprised? Whose responsible?

The relief efforts are being hampered at every turn by the lack of resources, machinery, supplies in the country. People are dying!

When do those in power in a country like Haiti become accountable for the well-being of the people? How can the fact that buildings were put together under corrupt deals, with inferior materials and design, be overlooked?

Would the carnage have been so widespread if the city was properly planned and buildings complied with regulations? The answer is no…

If the same fate had befallen a city in the developed world, would there not be massive legal implications for the building companies, the government? We all know there would.

Why is it, that the world has no expectations from, or respect for the leaders of the developing world? Why is it that aid from outside must flow without reservation into countries where the governments are notorious for their extravagant wealth at the expense of the basic needs of their people?

This issue nags at me. In Africa I’m surrounded by emergencies. Disaster characterizes the daily lives of over half the people on this continent. The governments continue to syphon the lion’s share of the countries’ resources, while the masses live in squalor, without access to healthcare, education, roads, water and electricity.

Why are people looting and shooting and running wild? The people have been desperate and ignored for a long time before the earthquake hit.



An earthquake is only the icing on the crumbling cake of corruption that has ruined so many nations.

An earthquake brings the cameras and heart wrenching stories. It brings out the motherly instinct in all of us.



But it hides and therefore condones the shameful behavior of the people in charge, who, through every corrupt deal, have sealed the fate of so many of the innocents.

And in a few months time when the media has forgotten about Haiti and turned it’s sensationalist eye to another of the world’s new and exciting disaster zones, who will ask where the relief monies have gone? Who will be benefitting? How extravagantly will the presidential palace be rebuilt at the expense of new hospitals, schools and basic housing?

Why would it be handled any differently than it ever has before…

(Photo of Haiti BEFORE the earthquake)

There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference - Ghana shows it's darker side

I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the perils of the health system, or lack of it, in Ghana. Combined with corruption, horrendous driving (with the resultant high rates of car accident deaths), and a general lack of respect for life, Ghana has a serious side that so many of my fellow bloggers choose to ignore or are simply naïve about.

One of my cyber friends, the Irishman in Ghana, recently took a trip from Accra to Kumasi – which is generally known as one of the most dangerous roads in Ghana He was in a tro tro at night. BAD idea.

His blog post HERE is worth a read. I of course chimed in on the comments section with my jaded reply.

As a foreigner it is a common reaction to assume a car would stop if it hit or ran over a person! And an equally normal assumption that someone should call emergency services. In this case however, the tro tro he was in kept driving, and to his amazement all the passengers were fine with that. When he reported the incident to the police later, nothing was done about it (except for the police no doubt bribing the driver).

The next day when he asked his fellow colleagues who were Ghanaian what he should do about it, they told him to drop it. Today I shared his story with some Ghanaian friends and colleagues, and people laughed. Not a happy laughter but once of futility and despair. Their responses were all along the lines that he was naïve to think anyone would care.

Over the weekend in Accra, a man was hit at about 4am by a taxi which did not stop. By 6am the body had been run over by no less than 3 other vehicles. That means no one stopped – and even once they had crunched and bumped over the mass of a body under their tires, they carried on. This article was published in the local paper, but when I tried to find it online today, I realized it wasn’t important enough to make it to the online news in Ghana.

Recently a friend of mine came to me to tell me that his 36 year old brother was missing after having a minor argument with a fellow tenant in the compound where he lived. It was discovered that three thugs had ‘beaten’ the man and since then he’d not been seen. Two weeks later, thanks to an article the family had run in the newspaper about their missing brother, his body was identified at a local hospital. They had been about to bury his body in a mass grave. No investigation, no questions asked. Luckily the family had closure. But now there was a murder case to follow surely??

You would think so, but then you would be a naïve foreigner. In fact, the three people responsible were taken reluctantly into custody, but bailed out within a day. Now the family is being asked for installments of money to ‘help the inspector’ with his investigations. Yet nothing is happening. No one shows up at the court for the case. The family is not wealthy or well connected and they cannot afford the bribes... the case will die. And that is the sad fact. A 36 year old man beaten to death – no repercussions for the perpetrators.

We went to the funeral and across the crowd, who sat on the rented chairs straddling the open gutter in the heat of the midday sun, fanning themselves with the funeral pamphlet, I made out the dead man’s mother. I saw the genuine grief in her eyes. A grief I know too well. A parent should never outlive their child. I realized though, as I watched the neatly dressed men load the coffin into the ambulance, as they do here (ambulances being used for bodies as opposed to the sick but alive), that in Ghana it happens all the time.


You could be a toddler in a village and catch malaria, or an unfortunate cyclist on the road to Kumasi at night. You could have an argument with the wrong guy or stumble out in front of a car. In Ghana you will probably die. And there will probably be a funeral and Ghana will move on.

My Irish friend likened the reactions of his fellow passengers to fear, assuming that it was this fear that stopped them from forcing the driver to stop and assist the person he’d hit.

But I’ve been thinking and come to the conclusion that is the opposite that is true. What happens in society when there are no consequence for our actions? When we have nothing to fear from authority and also nothing to gain. No welfare from the government, no protection from the authorities. It makes people lawless and also concerned with themselves only. Why help an accident victim on the road if you will be asked to pay his hospital bill or watch him be ignored? Why stop to help someone you’ve hit when the police don’t care and will not persecute you in any way?

I guess I’m the Thomas Hobbes in this discussion, with Ghana representing humans in a state of nature - in a 'war of all against all', without a controlling authority… I'm definitely thinking far too much, far beyond my reach…

All these sad events have made me a backyard philosopher. Time to indulge in some soft fleshy mango and slices of the sweetest and best pineapple in the world – and remember some of the things I love about Ghana!

Carrying dead bodies – punishment for bad parking in Accra

I was not shocked when I heard the story, but then I’ve been in Ghana a long time now… Here the authority of the military is many times unquestioned and more times abused by the ones in the uniforms. Human rights organizations would be up in arms, if they knew, if they cared. Ghana is not high on the radar though for these organizations. Ghana is the ever-promising ‘Gateway to Africa’! Embassies pop up here from every country on the globe, and investment is flowing in. In fact, this monthly ironically, CanademVolunteers, a Canadian International Development forum highlighted an article where “Ghana is Commended on Good Human Rights Record”.

Meanwhile, for the man in the street, life goes on – cowboy style, where those with a shred of authority lord it over those with less or none.

A couple of weeks ago, the ‘army boys’ up at the 37 Military hospital (home of the infamous bats in the trees above), decided it was time to stop a growing practice that was causing some congestion on the throughway in front of the hospital. The private mini vans which take the place of a formal public transport system, have organized themselves over the years in Ghana, into fairly organized associations and each driver/vehicle belongs to a specific organization, with a specific route and stopping points. The hospital in question has become an unofficial meeting point for the vehicles – ‘tro tros’ to all of us in Ghana. This does create quite a mess, as the drivers pull over ‘en mass’, and chaos ensues, with hundreds of street sellers, shouting, scurrying and touting their wares to those getting into, hanging out the windows of, and transiting the tro tros. Passengers dart around as well, and can be seen dashing out in front of the oncoming traffic… a very unsafe practice and a nuisance to all.

However, methods of dealing with this in other societies might be to:

A) Create a public transport system with designated stations
B) Or at least, create a designated station for the existing associations of tro tros.
C) Add no stopping, no parking signs and have a police patrol in front of the hospital

I doubt that physically dragging the drivers and their ‘mates’ (the guys who hang out the door calling out the destination and collecting money from the passengers), down into the mortuary of the hospital and forcing them into hard labour would be on the list.

Hundreds of drivers over the course of a few days were physically beaten and made to do such things as weed the lawns of the hospital, clean the floors of the mortuary, and even clean and carry corpses within the mortuary.

When asked about this highly disturbing and unwarranted form of punishment, the lady in charge, a lieutenant colonel, said “We need to teach them a lesson”.
Are these children? Are there no laws? And what ethics do the lawgivers possess – to force a citizen, without arrest or proof of guilt of a crime, to carry a dead body? What humour or justice or sense of righteousness is there in something as twisted as this??

The whole story is covered in the Ghana media, but not worthy of mention apparently at the BBC or any of the other foreign media houses, who rear their inquisitive heads, when there is a story ‘worthy of global attention’.

Instead Ghana is left to deal with these 'local matters', these incidents, which are numerous and far less reported outside of Accra, certainly. What does the government feel? Is this practice acceptable in their view?

They have not been available or perhaps not even asked to comment. For his part, the Brigadier General did comment that this goes against their regulations on dealing with civilians.

What will the repercussions be? What about the psychological affect on those forced into this bizarre punishment? What about their rights?

Well, the officers may be questioned.

Maybe.

Ghana gets a gold medal in hypocrisy

I’m sure I’m going to develop the reputation of being a negative person – what with all my rants about Ghana and Africa in general.

This is not true, as Ghana has hosted me and shaped my life for over a decade and there have been countless experiences I would not change for the world. But it just never ceases to amaze me what goes on here from a political and economic perspective, while the governments of the developed world and the International Aid community turns a conveniently blind eye.

A recent article on the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation site, highlights the appalling decisions made by the government, with regard to public funds. The article is simply called “Ghana spends $1.4million on gold medals”. No catchy title needed. The story even raised eyebrows at BBC.

How, you might ask, can a country that solicits for and attracts billions of dollars in Aid every year from governments and NGOs globally, turn around and frivolously spend over one million dollars to honour some local ‘VIPs’??!! They were 18 carat gold medals, no less...

Aha – welcome to Ghana. Our outgoing president (elections to be held later this year), honoured himself at last week’s ceremonies with a $65,000 gold medallion….
A fellow blogger in Ghana, the ever positive and inspiring Kajsa, recently blogged about this story directly after a story about how Ghana is making changes in the health care system, to facilitate free maternity care for all. It would seem to balance this story out…

But if you look closely, you’ll discover that the free healthcare initiative is being sponsored by the British government, to a tune of $42 million pounds. How do the British taxpayers feel – seeing both these stories in juxtaposition? Why should the British government feel a sense of responsibility and care when the Ghanaian government cannot demonstrate this same level of concern for their own citizens by sacrificing, even once, and putting their money where their mouths are. As elections are coming up, the empty promises of the political campaigns are at an all time high.
Besides the fact that the Ghanaian government is not somehow accountable to it’s people, with it's reckless spending in the face of the abject poverty suffered by the majority, there is the other persistent question….

If Ghana was named The Gold Coast in the past and remains Africa's second largest exporter of gold, why on earth would they have to import these gold medals at such a ridiculous price tag in the first place??

Ghana exports unprocessed gold. The processing and refining into the profitable gold bars is all done outside it's borders.

Had the governments of the past or present in Ghana been forward thinking, perhaps the country would have supplied their own medals, and been bringing in $millions$ today in orders for gold medals from other frivolous spending governments…

Maybe they would even spend some of the profits on social welfare projects... but that is the Ghana of fantasy for now...

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the Prez. jets are highly indulgent!

My faith in humanity is restored a tad today - being a Tuesday - and after having read that at least some Ghanaians are also speaking out against the hypocrisy that surrounds them... This article on a Ghanaian website puts the truth out there...

Nothing of course will change the path or decisions of the government, but hopefully the more public outcry, the more these things are challenged and maybe in a few generations these governments will be held accountable.

But whatever you do - DON'T SEND MONEY.