By: Otchere Darko

*“A total of 1,126 people were killed in road accidents countrywide between January and August 2010, Deputy Commander of Police Motor Transport and Traffic Unit, Chief Superintendent Deborah Addison-Campbell”. *(Source: Ghanaian Times; 25th Sept. 2010)

The above staggering statistics which is an awful indictment of our country can be traced to three main factors which are: bad vehicles consisting mainly of “home-used vehicles” that are also constantly repaired with “home-used vehicle parts”; bad driving by Ghanaian drivers whose love for money takes precedence over their concern about human safety; and bad roads that lack regular maintenance. The three factors, in turn, can also be attributed to identifiable groups of Ghanaians who deal with, or handle various aspects of our road transport service. These are:

(1) Ghanaian importers of, and traders in second-hand vehicles and motor spare-parts who go to UK, Europe, Korea, USA, etc, to buy “second-hand vehicles” and “second-hand spare-parts” and bring them here to sell to Ghanaians. These Ghanaian traders mainly go to “vehicle scrap-yards” in those countries where discarded and scrapped vehicles are thrown away and where “scrap dealers” in those countries fall on and break up these “throwaways” to sell to traders from poor countries where people place higher premium on cheapness than on proficiency and safety. Our second-hand vehicle and spare-parts traders buy as many of these “bangers” and “scraps” as their finances can afford and ship them to Ghana to sell to Ghanaians who “worship” them with 5-star accolades, describing them as “home-used vehicles”, “home-used engines”, “home-used tyres”, etc;

(2) DVLA officials who take bribes and give quickly-prepared “go-and-kill-yourself” roadworthy certificates to Ghanaian owners and buyers of imported “home-used vehicles”, majority of which are from “scrap yards” of the world’s richest countries;

(3) Ghanaian fitters who, instead of using brand-new vehicle parts, prefer to use the so-called imported “home-used vehicle parts” to repair vehicles brought to them because the latter are cheaper than brand-new vehicle parts....cutting down on repair costs at the expense of safety;

(4) Ghanaians who buy and use these “home-used vehicles” sold by road-side traders, instead of buying and using new or relatively less old vehicles sold by approved motor companies and dealers because brand-new vehicles and stronger used vehicles that have not exhausted their “cost-effective” ages and technical proficiency value” that are sold by approved dealers cost more;

(5) Ghanaian drivers who bribe police officers at the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit when they, the drivers, are apprehended for driving defective vehicles or for breaking traffic regulations and, through these bribes, avoid going to court and facing the appropriate punishment;

(6) Ghanaian police officers at the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit who ask for, and take bribes from drivers and vehicle owners and leave them to use defective motor vehicles on roads, or to commit other traffic offences such as over-speeding or overloading;

(7) Ghana Highways and Local Authority officials whose job it is to provide and maintain roads on our highways and streets but who collude with road contractors to create shoddy works so as to “crucify” and share surpluses from funds allocated for road construction and maintenance;

(8) Members of Parliament whose job it is to make laws, and who know that vehicles and vehicle parts scrapped by other countries are scrapped because they are too bad and too dangerous for further use in the countries where they come from, and yet these MPs fail to pass laws to stop such scrapped vehicles and parts from being brought into Ghana for sale and use;

(9) The Government of Ghana that is more interested in the import duties it collects from importers of second-hand vehicles and spare-parts than the lives of the Ghanaians who get killed every year through motor accidents that are caused mainly, though not solely as a result of these dangerous “home-used” vehicles and vehicle parts imported into, and heavily patronised in this country.

All the above listed groups of Ghanaians, in their own various ways, contribute to road accidents in Ghana. This article, however, focuses on the singular issue of importation of “second-hand vehicles” and “second-hand vehicle parts” that are essentially made up of items considered “not good for further use” in the places where they are “scrapped” by their owners and from where we import them to this country for reuse.

I have always wondered why no Ghanaian Government has so far found it compelling to link the frequency of road accidents in this country with the extensive use by Ghanaians of “second-hand vehicles” and “second-hand vehicle parts” that cannot technically be considered to be safe for re-use when many of these so-called “home-used” vehicles and vehicle parts were “scrapped” in their countries of origin. One can understand when Ghanaians fall in love with “cheap” second-hand clothing which is popularly called “obroniwaawu”. We know that “obroniwaawu” can be thoroughly washed and sterilised before use to reduce any risk associated with their reuse. But when someone buys a scrapped accident vehicle, for example, and gets accident mechanics and body-work specialists to work on it to make it look as if it has never had accident, can the buyer be sure that such a vehicle is safe to drive? When we replace two punctured front tyres of our vehicle with two “home-used” tyres, can we be sure that those “home-used” tyres which have been fully used and discarded by others are safe for use by us? How on earth can Ghanaian mechanics guarantee the safety of any used brake component or part brought from the “scrap-yards” of other countries? And how, also, can any Ghanaian mechanic guarantee the safety of “home-used” engines, gear boxes and clutches obtained out of vehicles scrapped at the “scrap-yards” of foreign countries?

In the countries from where we bring these so-called “home used” vehicles and spare-parts, which I prefer to call “bangers” and “scraps”, there are people who use vehicles that are twenty years old or more, like some of the vehicles we use here in Ghana. The crucial difference, however, between their old vehicles and ours is that theirs are repaired with brand-new vehicle parts, so that bit by bit all old parts with safety implication are replaced with brand-new parts. In this way, they create “new vehicles” mounted on old chasses and bearing the old vehicle number-plates with which those old chasses are registered. Once they come here, these imported “bangers” get worse and worse from time to time because every time parts of these old vehicles become dysfunctional, they are replaced with “home-used” parts from scrapped vehicles whose “history of use” we have no knowledge of.

We, Ghanaians, have allowed our crazy love for money to affect our senses of evaluation and judgment; and, in the process, we have all advertently or inadvertently become “killers” of the users of these vehicles and vehicle parts. From politicians who allow “bangers” and “scraps” to be imported from other countries to be sold and used on Ghanaian roads; to the police officers at the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit who take bribes from drivers and vehicle owners and condone the use of dangerous vehicles on our roads; to the DVLA officials who take monies from vehicle owners and issue them with quickly-prepared “go-and-kill-yourself” road-worthy certificates in respect of defective vehicles that fail to pass through thorough checking before clearance; to vehicle mechanics who choose to buy “home-used vehicle parts” to repair faulty vehicles brought to them for repairs; to vehicle owners who choose to buy and use “bangers” brought to Ghana from abroad by second-hand vehicle traders and dealers; and finally to the traders and dealers who import from abroad the “bangers” and “scraps” to sell to Ghanaians; all these people are guilty of gross contributory negligence of duty to protect lives on our roads. The biggest blame, though, must lie with the politicians of our country who are elected, among other things, to protect Ghanaians from avoidable exposure to road transport risks by passing and enforcing laws that remove or limit such exposures.

In my opinion, the first and most important thing for our Government to do to reduce road accidents is to ban the importation of all second-hand vehicle parts from tyres and break-parts to engines and gear boxes. We should not allow traders to bring into, and sell motor parts from vehicles that have been scrapped in other countries. Secondly, importation into this country of old vehicles that have exceeded their technically proficient mileages or years of use must be banned. The determination of what should be the maximum mileage or years of use should, of course, depend on the makes and brands of vehicles. We need to set these limits; and we need to ban vehicles that are too old and which, accordingly, constitute danger on our roads. Every Ghanaian knows that about 90 to 95 percent of imported second-hand vehicles are “rubbish”. And, as for the imported vehicle spare parts, we know very well that they all came from dismantled old vehicles that are even worse than those “bangers” that are brought “whole” as used vehicles. *It must be boldly said that the Government of Ghana is not acting responsibly at all by allowing the trading-in of the lives of Ghanaian citizens for cheap imported second-hand vehicles and vehicle parts that become nothing more than “death-traps” on our roads. *Let our current Government act NOW, where all past Ghanaian Governments never did.

Source: Otchere Darko. [This writer is a centrist, semi-liberalist, pragmatist, an advocate for “inter-ethnic cooperation and unity” and a community-based development protagonist. He opposes the negative, corrupt and domineering politics of NDC and NPP and actively campaigns for the development and strengthening of “Third Parties” in Ghana.]