Communications Minister, is it ‘new wine in old bottles’?
I found the launch of the digital addressing system last week a fascinating development. Its potential for taking Ghana into the league of advanced countries is evident.
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Equally exciting is the fact that it was designed by a Ghanaian company, Vokacom.
Inaugurated on October 18 by President Nana Akufo-Addo, the National Digital Property Addressing System, known as the ‘GhanaPost GPS’, generates unique property addresses for all locations in Ghana. This is seen as an important step in the country’s quest to provide strong underpinnings for business, social and other transactions.
The Ministry of Communications and Ghana Post are the custodians and managers of the system, which should eliminate usage of ‘near-the-lotto-kiosk’, and the like, as location directions.
But I have a concern: where does the somewhat haphazard Accra street-naming we’ve been saddled with fit in – if it does?
Even as we applaud the GhanaPost GPS initiative, encouraged by its promise, it seems to me that there is a critical, related rectification task that needs to be done quickly.
I’m referring specifically to the questionable Accra street naming exercise undertaken a couple of years ago under the administration of former President John Mahama. The embarrassing evidence of the error-riddled street names is visible everywhere in the nation’s capital.
So I have a question for Communications Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful: Is the digital addressing system to be used alongside Accra’s problematic ‘new’ street names?
What does the Good Book say about putting new wine into old wineskins (bottles)? And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.
Clearly, the GhanaPost GPS addressing system needs to go with corresponding, well thought- out, accurate street signs – if not a new street naming programme altogether!
Some of us have drawn attention a number of times to the need to correct the shameful street signs. However, they are still in place. Therefore, once again, this column would like to draw attention to the problem because of the city’s leadership role.
I hope that both the Communications Minister and GhanaPost will take this matter up and ensure that the capital’s street signs are accurate and reliable representations before they become accepted and permanent features complementing the digital addressing system.
The following is an abridged version of an article on that subject published in this space in 2015:
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What was wrong with our old street name? Why didn’t the Accra Metropolitan Assembly simply write the old names on the new, white-lettering-on-blue-background signposts?
Why not give names only to roads that have no names? Are names being changed for changing’s sake?
Yet, ironically, some of the names that have become misnomers are being maintained. Is ‘Castle Road’ still appropriate for a route that meanders through Odorna, Adabraka Official Town, past the Holy Spirit Cathedral and by the Osu Cemetery?
If in colonial times when it got that name there was a straight route from Adabraka to the Osu Castle, evidently since then there have been numerous changes hindering a straight route to the Castle.
If it’s for historical purposes, why can’t there be only one part of it that maintains the name ‘Castle Road’, while other segments are renamed?
Names of no immediately clear connection to a neighbourhood, or its residents, are being given to streets that had perfectly good names people were used to; with misspellings and misnamings galore!
If a street is to be given the name of an eminent person, why not somebody who has lived there, or has some connection with that area?
There is a ‘P.V. OBENG LN’ off the ‘Russia’-Dansoman Estate Road. Did Mr Obeng ever live in that area or have any link with it?
Incidentally, ‘Russia Road’, a popular short cut to Dansoman Estate, is now sporting one of the new signs as ‘OBLOGO ROAD’.
Interestingly, a seemingly obscure passage at Odorna is now ‘ODARTEY WELLINGTON ROAD’ – and I don’t think I saw the prefix ‘GEN’. In any case, did the General have any association with that place?
My dictionaries tell me that ‘avenue’ usually refers to a wide thoroughfare with trees. Yet, we now have streets named ‘AVENUE’ even when they can’t boast of a single shrub!
And if the High Street has to bear the name of the late President, can’t the signs have pleasing uniformity? There are at least three versions, at different points: ‘PROF ATTA MILLS HIGH ST’, ‘JOHN ATTA MILLS HIGH ST’ and ‘JOHN EVANS ATTA MILLS HIGH ST’.
Perhaps the most bewildering is the road apparently named after Prime Minister K. A. Busia. Evidently the namers could not make up their mind whether it’s a ‘highway’ or a ‘high street’.
From the Obetsebi Lamptey roundabout towards the Kaneshie Market, a sign says ‘DR BUSIA HWY’. However, further down, the signs either say ‘DR BUSIA HST’ or ‘DR BUSIA HW’.
But one consolation: at least the Busia name is correct and spelt right – which one can’t say about the signs honouring other dignitaries, such as the signboards with ‘J.A. KUFFOUR AVE’ on them. But maybe that stretch is not named after former President J.A. Kufuor, but rather another person with the same initials.
Nevertheless, there are positives.
The Dansoman Estate main road is now the ‘GEN ACHEAMPONG HIGH ST’. A very deserving honour, considering the role Gen Kutu Acheampong played in the initiation of the Dansoman Estate project, making it reportedly the biggest housing estate in West Africa.
But are there no guidelines for the Accra street-naming exercise? Is it being executed by different contractors left to their own devices and with little or no supervision?
Another issue is that as at now there is no indication that the new names are going to be used by all the other service providers, such as the Ghana Water Company, Electricity Company and the State Housing Company.
If no review is done about the implementation, the street-naming may end up with much money spent but little benefit. (‘Accra street-naming: any supervision?’ issue of October 30, 2015.)