Gender Inequality: The Negative Impact on Decisions of The Tamale Metro Assembly

GENDER INEQUALITY continues to be a huge challenge in the governance structures and processes of many state and non-state institutions in Ghana, right from the central government to the local government level.  Perceptions and attitudes towards women coupled with traditional and cultural setups have culminated in low representation of women in leadership positions including the government.  For instance, of the 275 legislators currently in the seventh parliament, the percentage of male legislators is as high as 89.1 percent compared to female which is 10.9 percent according to the country's Electoral Commission (EC).  The story is not so different at the local level as there are more male Assembly members  than females . According to the EC, of the 137 women who contested the 2011 District Level Election (DLE) in the Northern Region, only 19 were elected. The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) has only one female in a 64 member house and no female representation in Parliament.  It is important to also note that all District Planners, Coordinating Directors, heads of various government institutions in the various Assemblies in the region are also male. This imbalance results in decisions that are often inimical to the well-being of women and the vulnerable and their livelihoods or economic resources in the city of Tamale.   The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially goal 5, seeks to address key challenges such as poverty, inequality, and violence against women and girls.   Although 47 per cent of world business leaders according to the UN Women say they are in favour of gender quotas on corporate boards, women remain underrepresented in leadership and management level positions in the public and private sectors.   "Less than one-third of senior- and middle-management positions are held by women. While 39 per cent of countries worldwide have used some form of quota system to increase women’s representation in politics, parity is far from reality—as of 2017, only 23.4 per cent of all national parliamentarians are women" the UN Women said in a report.  According to the report, women worldwide make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men globally in the labour market. But sadly, due to the low representation of women in the TMA, when economic decisions such as decongestion of a city of traders are taken by city authorities, there is usually hardship at home. It is worth noting that about 80 percent of traders in two of its biggest markets, the Tamale Central and Aboabo markets are women.    Tamale Central Business District Children more often than not drop out of school owing to lack of money for their general upkeep because mummy or daddy is affected by decongestion.  Additionally  a significant number of these women traders do not own shops and therefore have to carry their wares on their heads and hawk  to sell. There are also those who sell their wares on tables in open spaces inside the markets and around the pedestrian precincts outside the markets.  Besides the markets serving as places of commerce for traders, transport operators such as members of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union also do business there. Their vehicles occupy a significant space of the inner and outside perimeters of the markets. This practice of transport operators and traders using the same venue for business, over the years, has contributed to unnecessary human and vehicular congestion. The safety of hawkers particularly from the rural parts of the TMA and other adjoining rural districts and their communities and other pedestrians and road users is also of concern to residents of the city. There have been serval attempts at decongesting the city in the past by city managers. Unfortunately, these have been considered a knee-jerk reaction and poorly thought through measures aimed at addressing the congestion problem but not representing a people centered action, nor are they compliant with the considerations of community or interest group engagements as stipulated in various international frameworks such as the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda.  The actions of the TMA though laudable to ensure a clean and safe, environment for all, have led to lots of hardships to families as many traders can’t support the essential needs of their family.  With a rise in unemployment facing the youth particularly girls, trading in the city centre is their only option. And even though the city authorities need to clear the city of filth, in doing so to ensure the safety of drivers, pedestrians and traders, it is also imperative to take into considerations their livelihoods and engage appropriately with each stakeholder to draw their support for the exercise to benefit the city.  On May 15, 2017, the Mayor of Tamale, Iddrisu Musah Superior ordered a decongestion exercise to be carried out in the central business district, targeting traders who sell on pedestrian walkways and in the frontage of stores around the Tamale central and Aboabo markets.  The objective of the decongestion exercise was to ensure discipline on the streets devoid of congestion and unnecessary filth. The exercise was carried out by the Tamale Metro Assembly’s decongestion taskforce comprising of personnel from the police, military, immigration, fire service and prisons. The taskforce was charged to remove all unauthorized structures as well as sack vendors/hawkers from the streets.  Thousands of traders were disgruntled. Many felt the mayor was insensitive to their plight as citizens of this country. They wondered why in the absence of employment opportunities, the mayor would choose to stop them from seeking a living by hawking in the streets.  Many of the traders including Maame Abubakari, a secondhand clothes seller, were stopped from selling on the streets in the central business district area. As a result of the decongestion, her business collapsed and she lost all her working capital.   “I stayed in the house for about 2 months without any work to do. I have 8 children I am taking care of. Life was very difficult for me and my family”, she recounted in an interview with her. She reiterated the need for the city to be accessible to all, while simultaneously, considerations of livelihood should also be of priority concern to city authorities with emphasis on the need for exhaustive engagements and education.  She advocated that, authorities should always ensure people understand their priorities in order to support implementation instead of resorting to rough and arbitrary destruction of goods and property of the very people they are expected to protect. Maame indicated that, but for the generous support of her creditor, she doubts if she would have been able to stand on her feet again. “My creditor visited me at home when I was sick…. that is in the immediate aftermath of the decongestion exercise. I told her I didn’t have money to do the business again and she gladly told me she was ready to give me some goods to sell if only I’m interested”, she explained. Maame Abubakari Selling Her Wares Sule, also a secondhand clothes seller said they (traders) were asked to go and sell around the West Hospital area and Kukuo. “When we went there, for more than a month nobody was buying our goods. Some people’s business collapsed and they had to sit at home”, he lamented. But after weeks of persistent agitation coupled with a ‘hide and sell’ tactics adopted by some of the traders to sell their wares, little by little, most of the traders came back onto the streets and pedestrian walkways to sell. On behalf of other traders, Sule and Maame appealed to the Tamale mayor to allow them to sell on the streets only on Saturdays and Sundays and the rest of the days they can find an alternative place to go and do business.     Considering the congested nature of the Tamale central and Aboabo markets, many including freelance journalist Philip Liebyang, have called for rehabilitation of community markets such as the Kukuo and Lamashegu markets as well as the need for the construction of new markets and recreational spaces.  However Philip fears that lack of adequate consultations with stakeholders including women, physically challenged persons and children will continue to reduce the future actions of the TMA to an impartially planned agenda to bring further hardships to city beneficiaries, and this will bring about more unemployment among residents of the city.  “If the Kukuo market is completed and a new one build at Lamashegu, these will reduce significantly the increasing congestion in the Tamale central and Aboabo markets as well as the central business district”, he opined.  Tamale is plagued with many issues as the TMA attempts to implement its programme of action befitting a city. Communities have unplanned roads, nonexistent home addresses to ensure compliance of tax on properties, inadequate street lighting and poor sanitation among others.  These issues could be solved through appropriate engagements among city authorities, traditional leaders, city centre interest groups, traders, women, youth and children to ensure people buy into the city agenda  and support in ensuring that all including women have their voices heard in the city that is expected to be their identity. One thing is clear as one interacts with the affected traders of the recent decongestion exercise. Whereas many have gone out of business and unable to fend for their families adequately, those who are still persistent, now find it difficult to break even simply because there are restrictions that are not allowing them to sell in some places. By Joseph Ziem and Fati Alhassan. The Authors of this Article are both Freelance Journalists based in Tamale.

ACEP Wants Oil Money to Be Spent on Few Sustainable Projects

Senior Programmes Manager at the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Munira Abubakari, says in order to ensure efficiency, Ghana’s oil money should be spent on a few sustainable projects.

According to her, even though government has tried as much as possible to follow the dictates of the petroleum revenue law, revenue generated from the sale of oil currently is “spread too thinly over so many projects” which do not ensure value for money.

“We as a policy think-thank we don’t think that it is good to spread money in that manner because it’s difficult tracking where the money goes to. 

“Besides, it also creates another problem where if you allocate money to a project and there are other funding sources coming to fund the same project, which is counterpart funding, it’s really not easy tracking the money and speaking to the right authorities, and getting information on such projects becomes difficult because there are so many funding sources. 

Speaking to Citi News in an interview on the sidelines of a day’s sensitization programme organized by ACEP at the Tamale Technical University, Ms. Abubakari revealed that she and her team have also visited some communities where there are supposed to be oil funded projects but unfortunately, those projects were nowhere to be found.

She indicated that, no significant impact has been made so far in the agric sector where oil money has been spent on capital projects, adding that, delay in the execution of projects also sometimes lead to cost overrun.

With funding support from OXFAM, the tracking of the oil money project by ACEP is focusing on projects executed with oil money in the agric sector. The team from ACEP has visited and interacted with officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Irrigation Development Authority at the regional level.

The Senior Programmes Manager of ACEP cited the unwillingness of some officials of certain departments to cooperate with her team when information is requested as one of the biggest challenges they are facing in tracking the oil money.

The sensitation programme sought to do a value for money analyses on oil funded projects in the agric sector specifically the Zakpalsi irrigation project in the Northern Region and the Tankasi and Zuiding irrigation projects in the Upper East Region.

It also sought to sensitise students of the Tamale Technical University about the existence of Ghana’s found iron ore at Sheini in the Tatale District and elicit views on how as a country, the minerals deposit could be managed or utilized in a sustainable manner.

The programme was also intended to sensitise the students on Ghana’s oil revenue utilization so far since the discovery oil in 2007 and the thematic areas within which the revenue has been used, how it was used and going forward, how well it could be used.

Let's Eschew Tribal Sentiments Which Can Cause Divisions -GSFP Boss

Dr. Kwame Adu-Nsiah

The National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), Dr Kwame Adu-Nsiah has urged Ghanaians to eschew tribal sentiments which have the tendency to cause divisions in the life of the nation.

Speaking to journalists in a response to happenings within the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in the Northern Region, he outrightly dismissed claims that the programme was recruiting zonal coordinators and caterers based on their tribal affiliations in the region.

According to him, all the zonal coordinators who were currently employed applied for the positions but not handpicked by the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection as falsely claimed by some sections of the general public. 

"We have two Dagombas, two Gonjas, one person from Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, one from Bimbilla and one from Kpandai. They were employed based on their qualification", he stressed.

He also admitted that, about one or two zonal coordinators were also working on contracts as caterers but the Secretariat gave them the option to choose being a zonal coordinator or caterer. "We did our checks and found out that some zonal coordinators were also caterers and the Secretariat asked them to resign from their positions and be caterers or remain and relinquish the catering job. And so they relinquished the catering job. So that issue has been addressed", he explained.

Dr. Adu-Nsiah also refuted claims that his outfit was undermining the authority of the Northern Regional Coordinator, Madam Felicia Konaah Tetteh by dealing directly with Zonal Coordinators instead of her.

“We have not undermined any regional coordinator and have not also engaged persons on tribal lines. There is no bad blood between us and the Regional Coordinator. She is not here because of her monitoring programme today as well as her deputy”, he disclosed.

Dr Adu-Nsiah however disclosed that, earlier he and officers of the region met and resolved all differences and that the sealed office has since been open for staff to work.

It would be recalled that a vigilante youth group of NPP calling itself Burma Camp locked up the Northern Regional office of the Ghana School Feeding Programme because according to them, their appointments were done based on tribal lines.

They maintained that until the positions were fairly distributed, the offices would remain sealed but responding to their concerns, the National Coordinator said they acted based on rumour and that it was at variance with the reality.

Government Urged to Allocate Sufficient Resources for One Village One Dam Initiative

Dr. Felix Abagale

The Dean of the newly created Faculty of Engineering at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Dr. Felix Abagale, has observed that for the government’s one village one dam initiative to succeed there is the need for “sufficient financial resources” to be allocated for the sectors growth. 

According to him, there is also a need for the government to engage experts in the design of projects and training of users, cautioning that “this should be devoid of partisan politics”.

Speaking at the first International Conference on Irrigation and Agricultural Development (IRAD) in Tamale, Dr. Abagale indicated, the UDS was ready to collaborate with the government in the implementation of the initiative.

Under the theme: “Irrigation and Agricultural Development: Prospects and Challenges for the Sector’s Growth”, the IRAD conference sought to create a common platform for all irrigation and agricultural sector players especially research scientists, local authorities, farmers, governmental and nongovernmental organisations to deliberate on the sectors growth.

The two-day conference also sought to promote exchange of innovative ideas amongst sector players in the sub-region, encourage investment through the identification of opportunities in the sector and establish linkages for financing opportunities.

Participants came from Africa, Europe and the United States of America. They comprised of academics, researchers, policy makers, civil society, students and among others.

The Pro-Vice Chancellor of UDS, Professor Alhassan Seidu who read a speech on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, said Ghana had an irrigation potential of 1.9 million hectares but only 11.6 percent (221,000 hectares) was being used.

This, he said, meant that the potential investable area of 88.4 percent of the irrigable potential provided a significant investment opportunity in Ghana. 

Prof. Seidu called on the private sector to consider investments in the irrigation sector especially in Northern Ghana where there was abundance of water during the rainy season.

“The provision of small dams and dugouts for the purposes of harvesting rainwater as well as flood waters and also the construction of tube wells have the potential to greatly contribute to reducing the hunger period through increased agricultural activities such as dry season farming”, he opined.

He further stated that, the University for Development Studies was well positioned with effective human resources characterized by expertise in irrigation and agricultural development. 

“Particularly, aside having irrigation agronomists, soil and water conservation experts, economists, there are also experts in the university with skills in the design of dams and dugouts.

“Since its establishment in 1992 the university has supported and will forever support the delivery of improved irrigation and agricultural development in Ghana and beyond through training and the provision of technical consultancy services especially for the savannah zone”, Prof. Seidu noted.