On Tuesday, this week, United Television (UTV) reported that thieves had gone to remove the entire roof of one of the basic schools at Akyem Oda in the Eastern Region. According to UTV, the theft was detected when the Headteacher went to the school the following day.
Then on Wednesday (yesterday), one Baffour posted on his Facebook wall that thieves have chiselled into one of the concrete walls supporting the Accra-Nsawam road and have removed the iron rods in them. This means the hitherto strong concrete wall can cave in any moment from now.
The Chronicle finds these two incidents very unfortunate and wonders what is happening in the country. After removing slabs that have been used to cover culverts in Accra without any action from the government, these social miscreants have now turned their attention to concrete walls supporting roads that have been constructed at great cost to the nation.
A few years ago, thieves mustered courage to hire Cranes, dressed like ECG workers and succeeded in removing almost all the streets bulbs on the George Walker Bush Highway in Accra. Though a lot of people, including some staff of The Chronicle, saw the removal of these bulbs, nobody could apprehend them.
We believe this is the same strategy these thieves, suspected to be scrap dealers adopted on the Accra-Nsawam road to remove the iron rods. Because members of the public have not been conscientised about these developments, the suspected thieves themselves are always encouraged to steal some of these state assets with ease.
To help stop the negative practice, The Chronicle suggests to the various assemblies to declare war on scrap dealers, because they are people behind the stealing of the slabs covering our gutters. Just as we were putting this piece together, our attention was drawn to the fact that a few months ago, all the slabs covering the gutters around the popular Ako Adjei Interchange were removed.
These are serious developments emerging in our dear country that must be tackled head-on. If we have National Security (NS) cameras all over Accra, especially at important places and yet these scrap dealers can muster courage to chisel walls constructed by the state and remove the irons in them without any detection, then we have a serious problem as a nation.
Clearly, some people are sleeping on their jobs and we plead with the right authorities to start cracking the whip. The scrap dealers who are mostly non-Ghanaians should not be allowed to destroy a country that we are all toiling to build and that is why the National Security Cameras must be seen to be working.
We believe if the NS starts tracking and arresting people, including the aluminium smelter plants that have been buying these stolen items, it will put the fear of God in them to stop the practice. With regards to the school which had its roof removed, we again think if the assembly and police settle down to work, they can get the suspects arrested.
Failure to make arrest will encourage them to start removing the roofing of all the basic schools in the area. The time for action is now!
