Many years ago while undertaking my National Service in the VRA, I was reminded of a very basic lesson which I had actually been taught during Civics in Primary School. The lesson was that the premises of all power transmission services at all levels are out of bounds to all persons except staff of the power utilities appropriately geared and sent in to undertake work. Even for these staff, beyond the safety boots that they wear, they mostly go into such facilities without watches and other stuff that may likely trigger a reaction from the installed power equipment.
It is for this reason that all transmission stations, transformers, etc are mandated to have a safety perimeter enclave around it (mostly secured by mesh or walking).
I was therefore shocked to my bone this morning when I saw a food vendor plying his trade directly in front of an ECG Sub-Station in a first class residential area of Accra. As if that was not enough, she had a set up inside the cordoned ECG station (gate open) where those who were going to eat there had table set up to eat with another table for washing the dishes.
Interestingly enough, there was a line up of at least six vehicles (mostly SUVs) whose occupants had queued up to patronize this vendor with none seeing anything wrong with the set-up.
I’ve since this morning been asking myself questions. Is it that our education in this country is so bad that we are ignorant and unable to appreciate these things? Is it a matter of weak enforcement of regulations by those paid with our taxes to do so. Is it simply that we have as a people, gone over the rubicon and so we simply do not care about anything any longer or it’s simply a combination of multiple factors.
I keep telling friends that we are headed as a country is so dangerous that if we are not careful, a time will come very soon where like in Genesis 21:25 where the Bible records that, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes”. We are told that a stitch in time saves nine.
Let’s tread very cautiously. Let them that have ears…
My dear friend,