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Takoradi, Ghana —
While politicians in Ghana's capital, Accra, toasted the birth of the West African nation's oil sector last week, disquiet grew in the booming coastal oil town of Takoradi.
“We are all suffering. All the fish, all the tuna, gather around the light on the oil-rig at night and stay there during the day. The government has to compensate us,” says Joseph Tetteh Narh, explaining that the mile-wide no-go area surrounding the offshore oil rig that began pumping just last week has cut local fishermen's catch by two thirds.
As Ghanaians flock to Takoradi to profit from the expected oil boom, residents claim rent prices have quadrupled and landlords are forcibly evicting tenants. Traffic now clogs the streets, slums are swelling, hospitals are swamped, unemployment and drug use are on the rise, and commercial sex workers swarm downtown at night, says Donkris Mevuta, executive director of Friends of the Land, a local nongovernmental organization.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Afric...resource-curse
While politicians in Ghana's capital, Accra, toasted the birth of the West African nation's oil sector last week, disquiet grew in the booming coastal oil town of Takoradi.
“We are all suffering. All the fish, all the tuna, gather around the light on the oil-rig at night and stay there during the day. The government has to compensate us,” says Joseph Tetteh Narh, explaining that the mile-wide no-go area surrounding the offshore oil rig that began pumping just last week has cut local fishermen's catch by two thirds.
As Ghanaians flock to Takoradi to profit from the expected oil boom, residents claim rent prices have quadrupled and landlords are forcibly evicting tenants. Traffic now clogs the streets, slums are swelling, hospitals are swamped, unemployment and drug use are on the rise, and commercial sex workers swarm downtown at night, says Donkris Mevuta, executive director of Friends of the Land, a local nongovernmental organization.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Afric...resource-curse