It is 6am and I am on a La Paz bound trotro to the office. Prior to getting on board at the underbridge bus stop on the Tema-Accra side of the Accra-Tema Motorway, the driver’s assistant (trotro mate) was shouting for passengers, saying “Kasoa, La Paz, Achimota”.
Well, it will interest you to know that the trotro mate is a woman. This brings to mind “what men can do, women can also do; power to women; gender equality; women empowerment, equal opportunities…”
It was time to collect the fares, so she started from the front seat, as is the norm. When she got to the second row, an older woman who sat by the window on the driver’s side of the car paid her fare with ten pesewa coins to the value of ten cedis (the fare from Ashaiman Underbridge to La Paz is ten cedis).
Come and see wahala! “Ah, madam, how do you expect me to count all these coins?”, she asked with such displeasure. Her concern was that it was too much ten pesewa coins and it would take her very long to count it all. I found it interesting, simply because it is legal tender.
She went on and on about how the passenger should have spent the coins in bits at different vending points instead of saving all of it for her fare.
I was tempted to intervene but I decided to wait and see the outcome. A passenger who sat beside me turned and said, “But it is Ghana money. Why should you turn it down?” Other passengers responded similarly.
The owner of the ten-pesewa coins had been silent all this while, however, she was suddenly empowered to speak for herself.
She said, “This is all I have.” At this point, I felt her distress. Times are tough! We have no idea how she even managed to raise that money for her fare.
Eventually, the mate took the money begrudgingly. This got me wondering, are we doing any good to ourselves as a people when we turn down some coins?
The price of sachet water as well as other goods and services increased automatically when the “Ghana cedi” was introduced in 2007, because there was no denomination for the old fifty-cedi coin. The new Ghana cedi denominations started at one pesewa (old 100 cedi note).
At the moment, one hardly even sees the one pesewa coin in circulation. No one accepts it for transactions, except perhaps in the shopping malls.
I have encountered vendors who refuse the five pesewa coins. It has been very long since I saw it in the system. Is the same fate awaiting the ten-pesewa coin? How does that affect the cost of living, especially for the ordinary Ghanaian who hardly makes ends meet!
Prices of goods and services keep increasing and there are various factors at play to that effect. However, we compound the problem when we keep up with such attitudes as turning down some denominations of our currency.
Today, it’s a trotro mate and a passenger. It might be you and a food vendor in the market tomorrow. “Shine your eye, chaley!”
Written by Emmanuel Asei Kangah, a development worker and child protection advocate
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