Story By: Joseph Wemakor & Wisdom Hammond
The poor living conditions of residents of Miemia in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region will continue to worsen if their cries for help are not heeded.
The unspeakable conditions of residents have compelled the queen mother of the area to speak to two (2) reporters of a Human Rights Group, the Human Rights Reporters Ghana(HRRG) about the woes of the community dwellers.
In a telephone interview with HRRG’s Joseph Wemakor and Wisdom Eli Kojo Hammond, the queen mother of Miemia, Nana Akoba lays bare the plights of the inhabitants with regrets.
According to the queen mother, the community is in dire need of basic amenities such as motorable roads, health facility, toilet facility and portable drinking water among others making it difficult for survival of its residents despite several calls on authorities for support which has yielded no positive results.
Miemia a community in the Ahanta West District of the Western region is one of the many communities in Ghana which lack the required basic needs including infrastructure development for good living to thrive.
With close to a population of 5000, the community can only boast of a dilapidated school building which houses basic school children in preschool, primary and Junior High School(JHS) department.
The school building has developed cracks posing as a death trap to the lives of both teachers and pupils on a daily basis.
“It is risky, very, very risky, the fishermen group in the area tried helping the school by providing some form of accommodation for the teachers, Nana Akoba added.
In addition to the lack of above amenities, the queen mother also hinted that there is no decent place of convenience within the fishing community hence the people have to trek to the beach to attend to nature’s call or go to visit some ‘designated places’ (makeshift structures) made purposely for attending to nature calls. The structures, she described as an ‘eye sore’ and not befitting facility to attend to such calls of the nature.
“This is one thing I wish I could get help to deal with to put a big smile of the faces of my people”. “The presence of a health facility in the area is a dream the community has hatched all these years yet; it remains a mirage”.
The unavailability of a health facility in Miemia is another hurdle, as such the residents are compelled to travel long distance to ‘Adzambra’, a neighboring community to access healthcare delivery. Apparently, the health facility there is also in a deplorable state, without the presence of any nurse or health professional(s) to attend to patients.
The queen mother believes the presence of health facility in the community alone will serve as a panacea to half of their problems since she noted that such challenge alone leaves her with sleepless nights.
“Traveling long distance to the health post at Adzambra gives no guarantee that, one will receive the needed medical attention, a clinic or a medical Centre with the modern facilities within the Miemia traditional council area would go a long way to help improve health delivery for both the old and young in the community”, she stressed.
According to her, if accommodation is provided for nurses too, it would help motivate them to come and stay and even work harder to deliver expeditiously on health services.
She furthered that as a fishing community, Miemia can only boast of an old borehole that serves the area with drinking water.
“Sadly, whenever water is fetched from the borehole, there are traces of diesel in the water which is attributed to the fishing done in the area because the fishermen use it for their work”.
“We urgently need modern mechanized boreholes or better sources of drinking water so as not to endanger the lives of our people who apart from drinking also use it for all other domestic chores”, she hinted.
Nana Akoba revealed that the community has vast lands at a place called ‘Dodo’ which they will make available for any organization, NGOs or philanthropist(s) who may want to help provide the community with their needs.
Although the community is rich in rubber, according to the queen mother, the poor nature of roads makes it difficult for any business investment to thrive in the area since investors are put off.
A situation which she lamented as a contributory factor to youth the unemployment; as many youths in the town cannot boast of decent jobs that can earn them living apart from fishing which they have to rely on for survival, unfortunately, which is not yielding any good returns.
“There is only one hotel in the area which employs few of the youth however, due to the poor nature of the road, patrons of the facility hardly come around and the hotel is not functioning hence the youth has no job to do”, she lamented.
Miemia has clans such as the Akyea Busua, Nsona Busua, Adwenadze Busua, and the Anana Buasua which according to the queen mother, these clans will embrace support from all those who want to help meet their pressing needs.
Nana Akoba in conclusion said: “If asked to list the basic pressing needs of this community according to a scale of preference, they would be in the following order: Health facility, Toilet facility, Water (Bore Hole), and a School building to educate the children in the community”.
Meanwhile, when the Human Rights Reporters contacted the Nkosohemaa (Social Development Queen Mother) of the area, Nana Nyanzu (known in social life as Fatima Alimohamed), she shared similar sentiments expressed by Nana Akoba
According to her, she was moved to help relieve the plights of residents with much focus on four (4) key areas such as provision of schools, toilet facility and portable drinking water and a clinic to help relive the plights of the people.
Nana Nyanzu also appealed to government, corporate institutions, NGOs including well-meaning individuals to come on board and support the community with basic amenities to make life easy for the inhabitants.
