Mamle Odoom and her two daughters squat by buckets of water by a gutter as they do the week’s laundry. She seems happy as she laughs over a joke one of her daughter makes while sorting out cloths from the pile into a bucket of dirty soapy water. Close to them are a fleet of rickety vehicles parked by the pavement. The gutter by which they squat is filthy. Close by are heaps of refuse collected from the gutter several weeks ago when residents participated in the previous sanitation day exercise.
69- year- old Pierre Kwetey walks by and frowns at the sight. He is concerned about the level of human activity on the pavement meant for pedestrians and has not hidden these concerns from the community leaders.
And, as the District Assembly Elections gradually draw close, he has not failed to tell all aspirants what he is looking out for.
“Those who cook on the pavement wash on the pavement and put structures on the pavement…they force our school children to walk on the streets which is not the best”, he tells me with a stern face, adding, “He (the incumbent Assembly man) came to me about three days ago, asking me to renew his mandate but I told him that he should do something on this thing…otherwise he won’t get my vote”.
Adabraka Odornaa Sahara is one of eight electoral areas in the Korle Klotey Constituency in the Greater Accra Region.
A large section of the electoral area has good roads and is properly planned with constant water flow and other social amenities.
Adabraka is predominantly occupied by the middle class, on the flip side though is a slum-like area, Odornaa Sahara where Mamle Odoom and her family live. Like Mamle, people at Sahara live mainly in wooden structures under very unhygienic conditions.
Once again the people of this electoral area on March 3 will join the rest of Ghana to elect an assembly member. Unlike Pierre, Mamle is concerned about the pile of refuse on the streets and in the gutters in her neighborhood. In fact, she has only one request as far as this is concerned.
“When we collect the refuse from the gutter and put them by the roadside, we want our Assembly Member to contract the Waste Management companies to cart them at no cost to us”, she says stressing, “that is all we need”.
But Kwabena Poku who I meet not far from the office of the Assembly Member is proud of the incumbent member. Pointing to a street light opposite us, he says “now Adabraka is safe. Hon Kinnah brought these streetlights. At first, you cannot walk through the streets here without being attacked. Now we can walk on the streets and feel safe.”
There are four men contesting the Assembly member position for the Odorna Sahara Electoral Area. The incumbent, Emmanuel Azumah Morgan Mensah, Maxwell Boateng, and Christian Amuzu.
I meet Azumah Morgan by the Odor River. The river, choked with refuse overflows anytime it time it rains, flooding the whole area. He tells me this problem, is one of the main reasons why he is contesting, because, “we have been hearing that they will come and dredge it, but they don’t come. By the grace of God, when I am elected, I will attack the authorities to come and dredge it to solve the problem.
Tackling the unsanitary conditions at Sahara, Morgan says, will be another priority when given the nod on March 3 2015. According to him the incumbent has done very little as far as the health of the people in the community is concerned.
“The recent cholera we experienced affected some people in this community …if we go out to educate the people in this community, it will help us”.
Hendrick Kinnah, the incumbent, speaking with me from his makeshift office in the community, says he is running again to complete works he started which include providing streetlights for the community and being available for his people “24/7” and registering every household in his electoral area to refuse collection.
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By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana