Things Fall Apart in Ghana (So We Should Probably Maintain Them)

Ghana: a handyman's dream.

On June 3, 2015, a terrible tragedy befell Accra: a torrential downpour flooded much of the city, filling houses, ruining furniture, disrupting electricity and even washing cars off the road into ditches. Dozens went missing and were presumed drowned.

The worst part: as people huddled under any cover they could find, dozens took shelter at a petrol station at Nkrumah Circle, the main transit hub. The flooding breached a fuel tank, coating the water with petrol. A nearby resident sparked their generator, which set off the lake of fire and blew up the fuel tank. Over 150 died instantly in the city's worst disaster in recent memory. Mr. O could hear the explosion from his house a few kilometres away.

A few key facts for context:

• The rains were heavy and constant for several hours, but not record-breaking.
• The main cause of flooding was the massive volumes of garbage clogging drains and waterways, as well as illegal settlements next to them.
• At least six hundred million dollars have been pledged in recent years to upgrade Accra's colonial-era sewer and drainage system, with almost none of it spent.
• The previous month, the Mayor of Accra was given an award of Best Mayor in Africa by his peers.

All of this to say: the disaster was a preventable tragedy.

In the ensuing days, there were national days of mourning and pronouncements of "never again". However, more cynical types will note that this is a cyclical phenomenon in which little gets done.

Another fine example: The Adomi bridge is a landmark structure that crosses the Volta River and is the main route for travel to the region. Last year, it was declared structurally unsound and closed immediately for emergency repairs that will take two years. Funds have been released for repairs and two ferries are now transporting vehicles across the river around the clock.

Despite being open for almost sixty years, nobody took the step of ensuring that the critical bridge underwent regular checks and maintenance. Surely, it was a concern, but budgets were tight and Ghana could not afford it... until it became an emergency and suddenly plenty of money was available. The same phenomenon recently happened on the similarly-aged and critical Tema Motorway: benign neglect followed by emergency action and copious spending.

The root cause? Ghana does not have a maintenance culture (full disclosure: I am repeating writer Elizabeth Ohene). As Americans would say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Just as Ghanaians will not take a car to the mechanic until it is beyond road-worthy, authorities will not fix a bridge until it is in danger of collapse, or address a massive sanitation and city planning issue until hundreds die in floods.

This is fine on a household level: the average Ghanaian will ride a bike until it literally falls apart or squat to use a broken-handled broom if the bristles still work. But one cannot jerry-rig a country. And people will seriously need to change their attitudes and demand better from themselves and their authorities before sustainable development can happen.

Two months on and the Circle Fire is already a distant memory. But the rainy season is slowly petering out and it will be nice and dry anyway. A recent radio ad started, "Noah didn't build the ark when it was raining." For a religious nation, it sounds like biblical advice worth noting.