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Of Presidential Mansions, Hostels, and Bean Counting
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
May 2, 2007
I
know I shouldn’t tell our esteemed professor and former
Vice President Atta-Mills this. But sometimes comparing
presidential mansions to student hostels can sound like
counting beans.
He recently said that "Instead of investing more in
education to help reduce the burden on parents, the
government is spending $30 million on the construction
of a presidential palace."
The former Vice President's concern, as reported by GNA,
was about the lack of injection of “more capital into
the construction of hostels to help alleviate the
accommodation problem facing students.”
It will be interesting to know how many hostels were
built under the administration of the NDC in which he
served as the vice president.
Then consider why six years later there is
suddenly a shortage of hostels for students.
It is only in the political realm where a populist theme
like more hostels for students can compare with the need
for a decent presidential palace.
In a more practical world, the consideration
could be put in a better context and for other reasons.
Under the Kufuor administration, as it stands now, there
have been many hostels already built. The evidence is in
plain sight, at least at the University of Ghana, Legon
area.
But investing in hostels does not necessarily mean
investing in better or quality education. Private
individuals can be encouraged by both government and the
universities to build and rent hostels for profit.
As corporate bodies, the universities can easily raise
the needed capital to participate and capture a portion
of this real estate market too.
The opportunity leaves government taxes for
something else.
Banks would love the opportunity to lend money to the
universities. And if it turns out to be good business,
private investors can participate in this area of the
economy too.
Rather than depending entirely on the government for
everything, the universities can use the opportunity of
building hostels as a drive for self-reliance.
We can have a presidential mansion and still build
student hostels with these twin approaches.
But beware, when opposition politicians start talking
about alternative uses for hard sums of monies like the
$30 million, they might well have something else in
mind. And
usually, the goal is to imply waste against an
administration in an attempt to convince the public that
worthier projects have been bypassed.
They fail to think that a presidential mansion is a
national monument and therefore can be a worthy project.
Only the nation
can build a worthy mansion for itself.
Hostels or dormitories, even gold-gilded ones,
can easily be built by private enterprises.
There is no denying that a sum of $30 million is a huge
sum of money. However, it must be noted that the
underlining reason for building the presidential mansion
is for function, prestige, and grandeur.
If these factors are present in our presidential
mansion, there will be no denying the benefit, and the
notion that we have done right for our history as others
have done for theirs.
The cathedrals and palaces of Europe build so long ago,
now are worth more than their weight in gold.
This rhetoric against the presidential mansion and
student hostels is old.
It is the same that was used against even
utilitarian projects like Akosombo, Job 600, and the
Tema Motorway.
When these projects were first proposed, at a critical
time in our history, they were opposed because of some
other pseudo-perceived needs at the time.
Critics argued that the hungry should have been fed
first; or that there were shortages of “essential
commodities” therefore Akosombo, or Job 600 should not
be built. Or that these projects were plain “White
Elephants.”
But if Akosombo was a “White Elephant” back then, what
is it now?
Akosombo is now the backbone of our economy.
Back then, it was erroneously described as a
“White Elephant” by political mischief makers of the
day.
As for Job 600, it now happens to house our prestigious
Parliament. There is not a single building of its type
in existence in Ghana now that can match it in grandeur
or magnificence.
All this goes to show that too much political cost
accounting and its attendant populism can blind us to
some existential facts.
And that strenuous searches for emotive ways to label
projects of merit as unworthy, to gain political
advantage, can only lead to regretful consequences
later.
Back to the subject of grandeur. Our architectural
landscape is dismal. Historical buildings worthy of
note are not built by us.
Castles dotting our coastline were built by the
colonials. The Supreme Court and the old Accra Post
Office, all worthy of architectural notes, were built at
the insistence of the British, not us.
Recent additions like the Nkrumah Mausoleum and the
National Theater are beautiful works of architecture,
but they were erected mostly with the help of the
Chinese.
To put the budget for the Presidential Mansion in
perspective, we need to know that it cost some 2.5
million dollars in 2005 just to renovate, not build, the
National Theater, and the cost was borne by the Chinese
government.
So, when and who should build our Presidential Mansion?
Fifty years after independence and we are still housing
our presidents in what used to be a slave fort.
The shame is on us if after all these years we
can’t afford to build something better and of more
worthy grandeur.
A
presidential palace must be the face and the reception
house for the nation.
It is the first stop for heads of state on visits from
all countries. Comfort at an unsophisticated level
should not be the standard for what we build. If there
is a need to house an executive head of state it must be
done right, not in a crass manner or borrowed history.
Knowing our deficit in memorable structures, it is
incumbent upon us to build something that is sight
compelling, long-lasting, and magnificent.
Our main worry as citizens should now be the challenge,
for decades to come, of how to sustain the magnificence
of what will come out of the $30 million to be spent.
This is not the time to worry unnecessarily about
student hostels.
The current president, Mr. Kufuor, who has proposed the
building and to whom the attack is directed, will be out
of office long before the mansion is completed.
A well-built presidential mansion cannot be considered a
waste.
We must praise Nkrumah for understanding grandeur, and
then also give Kufuor the credit for trying to attain
the same level now.
One may argue that the esteemed Prof. Atta-Mills was not
saying that we should not build a presidential mansion.
But what I did not hear him say was when he wanted that
built and how much he was willing to pay for it.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, May 2, 2007.
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