Free but not available
Mother nature has been so generous that she made air, one of the vital necessities of life, absolutely free and available everywhere. Can we imagine how life on earth would be like if the availability of the oxygen we breathe should be a subject of debate among governments? We can make a wild guess that Man would have been extinct long ago.
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State governments everywhere have initiated social interventions in several sectors to provide certain facilities/services free of charge or at heavily subsidised costs for the sake of the poor, the vulnerable or the socially disadvantaged.
Our governments, from the immediate post-colonial to the present, have made several attempts, some without any noticeable success, to provide health, educational, agricultural, water, electricity and other social services either free or heavily subsidised to the citizens.
Rising population, dwindling or mismanagement of resources and other economic pressures have made it increasingly difficult for our governments to make certain social interventions, even if they want to, and any attempt to pretend to be doing so will be a fallacy or will amount to self-delusion.
It is, therefore, pretentious and criminal negligence if the state offers to provide certain services free but which are not readily available to the beneficiaries. It will be better to confront the truth and let beneficiaries appreciate the true nature of things than to promise hope where there is none.
Most of our school campuses are now in perpetual darkness not because of the national malaise called Dumsor but because the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has justifiably disconnected power supply to these schools for non-payment of accumulated bills.
The school authorities, who are frustrated by the adverse effects of the situation on academic work and security on the campuses, have decided on what they see as the best solution to the crisis by requesting that students pay for utilities, which will include water and electricity.
The government itself has toyed with the idea and even made a pronouncement to that effect but quickly retracted when they realised the social implications and the political ramifications.
As it is, government officials have denied that students in public tertiary institutions will be paying utility bills any time soon, while no efforts are being made to settle the outstanding bills. Meanwhile, the ECG, whose operations have been severely affected by the non-payment of these bills which have accumulated over the years, cannot endure it anymore.
To look good in the eyes of the general public, especially that of the affected students and the school authorities, the government continues to make promises to pay the bills while trying to paint the ECG as callous and uncaring , thus, muddyng the matter the more.
There were fewer public universities and polytechnics in those days when the state was footing utility bills. Today, public tertiary institutions have increased and their student populations run into hundreds of thousands. Apart from that, there are hundreds of thousands of other Ghanaians in private tertiary institutions who are shouldering the full cost of their training, including utility bills.
It is, therefore, time to end the pretence and take a bold decision and ask the universities to evolve the means to pay their utility bills. Whether they will go more commercial and raise the funds or pass part or all to the students should be their decision. That is what autonomy means.
Whatever the decision, it must be known to fresh students well in advance when they are accepting admission to the schools so that they are not caught in that deception that the government or for that matter, the people of Ghana, including parents of students in private tertiary institutions, will pay for their water, electricity and other utilities.
A spade is a spade, and not just a digging tool. It is better for the government to remove that cloak of a charity around it for us to see its bare body than to keep our campuses in darkness all the time for making promises that are not easy to fulfil. You cannot say something is free when you cannot make it available.