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Ajoa Yeboah-Afari
Ajoa Yeboah-Afari

An era of ‘call-dodgers’!

I can’t help wondering whether the baffling incidents of unruly behaviour by persons tagged as members or sympathizers of the ruling New Patriotic Party point to communication problems between the grassroots and the party’s district leaderships.

Also, I wonder why the opposition National Democratic Congress doesn’t see the offences as matters for the police, but insists that it is President Nana Akufo-Addo himself who should take action. What then is the work of the police?

The confrontations have been linked to the unending tit for tat between the NPP and the unseated NDC. The often cited explanation is that the NDC previously did it and therefore the alleged NPP perpetrators feel that their actions are justified.

However, could it also be due to the fact that they resort to unilateral action because when they try to report their misgivings nobody pays heed? Are the acts of indiscipline borne out of frustration?

Take the latest reported case reported in the Ghanaian Times of April 22. It said that some irate youth in Zabzugu, Northern Region, “suspected to be supporters and sympathisers of the ruling New Patriotic Party” last week chased out workers of the District Assembly and the National Health Insurance Scheme.

The youth alleged that most of the Zabzugu Assembly and NHIS staff were sympathisers of the NDC and they had identified them as thwarting the agenda of the ruling party, the paper stated. 

If it is true that the alleged perpetrators took that action as their way of protecting the interest of their party, the Government in power, does it mean they had no other means of alerting the NPP headquarters about their suspicions?

If NPP members in a particular locality suspect sabotage or see anti-NPP elements hampering the NPP’s plans, where are such reports to be made? This is a matter of whistleblowing! So how does an ordinary member ensure that action is taken regarding such worries?

Should it take only a negative action that makes the headlines to get concerns addressed?

The irony is, one would think that in these days of wide availability of phones, when even farmers in the smallest hamlets take their mobile phones along when going to their farms, there would be no problem getting in touch with party leaders, or state institutions.

But that would be a very mistaken assumption!

The fact is that many Ghanaian institutions and political leaders of all shades clearly have an aversion to answering their phone. They have seemingly sworn an oath, to God knows what deity, that they will pick up calls only from familiar numbers, or names they recognise on their phone screens. To all others, they are what I term ‘call-dodgers’.

Why do they dodge calls? What has happened to ‘phone etiquette’? 

Who or what are these people hiding from, the permanent ‘call-dodgers’? After all, if you pick up a call and you don’t feel like continuing the conversation, you can always make an excuse and end it.

Mobile phone credit top-up doesn’t come cheap, so there can’t be many people making frivolous calls to warrant officials permanently dodging calls.

What is the point of tacitly agreeing to be part of national telephony, if you will take calls only from family, friends and acquaintances – especially if you are a public officer? Besides, it takes only one day, a single call or meeting, to turn a stranger into an acquaintance or even an ally!

In some cases, one is advised to first send a text message to the known call-dodger to alert them to expect a call from you, but even then success is not guaranteed!

Our institutions, too, are notorious for not answering calls, regardless of the fact that they have publicized certain numbers to be called when one needs to contact them.

The following reader’s letter in the Daily Graphic earlier this week, on Monday, signed simply “Resident of Ashiyie”, obviously a very exasperated person. The headline was: “ECG, wake up!

The letter read:

It has been five days and nights without electricity for the residents of Ashiyie and its environs.

Calls to their fault and management lines, 020 202 5736 and 020 202 5741, respectively, are never picked.

Is it because they are busy at their vendor outlets?

ECG wake up!

Why do staff of a public institution, paid with taxpayers’ money, refuse to take calls from the public?

This is a country supposedly on a productivity drive but you wouldn’t know it. People are compelled to waste time battling traffic to go to a destination just to find something out, or even to book an appointment, something which could have been done by a five-minute phone call.

Shockingly it’s not only service organizations which don’t take calls. I have found out to my dismay that even calls to some of our highest administrative offices and establishments don’t get picked up.

Yet, these are places with working phones and hordes of staff. If officials are too busy to pick up their calls, why can’t they assign somebody to answer the phone on their behalf?

Incredibly, some journalists and media people are also in the grip of this disease! It’s hard to believe that people in the media, people who are supposed to be communicators, will pick up only if they know who is calling; or won’t call back if they miss a call! I call them ‘communicators who don’t communicate’.

 And there are even Members of Parliament who have acquired the reputation of never picking up calls.

If MPs and public officials won’t take calls, how can an ordinary person with a grievance or even a bright idea, get to talk to a person in authority?

It’s no surprise that formal letters, too, get similar treatment: no response.

Little wonder that almost all the industrial actions and strikes reported in this country have included at the top of the grievances the complaint: “We got no response to our letters/grievances”.

One of the most significant statements from President Nana Akufo-Addo’s January 7 speech at the Independence Square was that “Ghana is open for business again”. I think we need to be not only open for business but, equally, we should be ready to communicate as well.

 

A disposition to take calls, to respond to communication, should be mandatory; notably for every public official, office or institution.

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