The ongoing confrontation between the Tema Development Company (TDC) and the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) may be presented as a dispute over planning authority, permits and statutory powers. Those legal questions are important and should be properly resolved.

But for the people of Tema, there is a much bigger issue.

If TDC and TMA have both exercised important responsibilities in Tema for decades, how has one of Ghana’s best-planned cities been allowed to deteriorate to its present condition?

This is the question that should concern us more than which institution eventually wins the current dispute.

Tema was deliberately developed as Ghana’s principal industrial and port city. With the country’s major seaport, industrial establishments, planned residential communities and strategic location, Tema should today be one of the cleanest, most organised and modern cities in Ghana, if not West Africa.

Yet anyone familiar with parts of Tema will recognise a different reality. Informal commercial activities have increasingly taken over roadsides and pedestrian spaces. Traders operate in areas not designed for markets. Squatters and unauthorised structures occupy spaces and sometimes encroach on properties. Sanitation and drainage remain concerns, while some roads serving important industrial areas are in poor condition.

These problems did not develop overnight. They accumulated over many years while the institutions responsible for the city’s development and administration were present.

Beyond Collecting Rates and Selling Land

TMA’s responsibility cannot simply be understood as collecting rates, issuing permits and enforcing regulations. Municipal administration ultimately means ensuring that the city functions properly and remains orderly, safe and liveable.

Similarly, TDC’s responsibility should not be seen merely in terms of developing housing, allocating land or selling plots. Given its historical role in the development of Tema, it should have a continuing interest in the quality and sustainability of the city that emerges from those developments.

The legal mandates of TDC and TMA may differ, but residents experience only one Tema.

There is no separate TDC Tema and TMA Tema when roads deteriorate, public spaces are taken over, sanitation suffers or planning regulations fail.

That is why the present confrontation should cause both institutions to examine their performance rather than concentrate solely on defending their authority.

What Does the Demolition Tell Us?
The demolition connected to the present dispute raises another uncomfortable question.

How can two major public institutions operating within the same city allow a development disagreement to reach the stage of stop-work orders and demolition before effectively resolving their differences?

If TMA believed the project lacked the necessary approvals, why was the issue not resolved much earlier? If TDC believed its statutory mandate permitted it to proceed, why was there no institutional mechanism capable of settling that interpretation before construction reached this stage?

Demolition may sometimes be legally justified, but in this case the spectacle also points to a deeper problem: weak coordination between institutions entrusted with responsibilities within the same city.

Citizens should not have to watch public institutions fight after the problem has developed. Good governance requires institutions to communicate, coordinate and prevent such situations.

Tema Does Not Need a Winner
The people of Tema do not need TMA to defeat TDC or TDC to defeat TMA.

They need a functioning city.
They need better roads, particularly around industrial areas. They need properly organised markets where traders can conduct business without occupying roads and pedestrian spaces. They need effective management of squatting and encroachment, improved sanitation and drainage, protected public spaces and consistent enforcement of planning regulations.

Above all, they need institutions that understand that their ultimate responsibility is not institutional power but public service.

The current dispute therefore presents an opportunity.

Rather than merely determining who has the stronger legal argument, the government should clarify the responsibilities of TDC and TMA and establish a permanent mechanism for coordinating development, planning and enforcement in Tema.

There should also be a serious review of Tema’s broader development needs. A modern redevelopment strategy should address industrial roads, markets, sanitation, drainage, public spaces, encroachment, housing and the gradual deterioration of parts of the original planned city.

Tema is too important to Ghana’s economy to be managed through institutional rivalry.

The city was once an important symbol of Ghana’s industrial ambition. It should not become an example of what happens when institutions concentrate on jurisdiction while the environment they are supposed to manage deteriorates around them.

The most important question arising from the TDC–TMA confrontation is therefore not simply “Who has the legal authority?”

It is:
“Who is taking responsibility for Tema?”

Because if TDC and TMA are both responsible for important aspects of the city, then they must also accept responsibility for its condition.

Tema does not need TDC to win against TMA or TMA to win against TDC. It needs both institutions to work together and start delivering the Tema that its residents—and Ghana—deserve.

Isaac Yaw Asiedu
https://rethinkingafrica.org