WHILE Ghanaians celebrate the country’s first oil, residents in Sekondi/Takoradi now christened “Oil-City” (OC) are getting overwhelmed by vices such as prostitution, pilfering and high cost of living as a result of the oil find.
Residents say the oil find has made the twin-city, hitherto, a calm place, now a very expensive city and crime-prone.
Prostitution which used to be limited to certain parts of the metropolis and in the heavy-duty truck terminals, have now spread in a more sophisticated manner to other parts of the city.
Others travel from neighbouring countries to the metropolis to practice prostitution.
At brothels in the metropolis, these young ladies enter and change their dresses into more provocative ones.
The owners of these facilities said they had problems with the activities of the prostitutes, but it was actually a good business for them since the expatriates and some members of the community loved to visit because of those young ladies.
In the recent past, the hotel owners had to drive some of the young ladies away because apart from their embarrassing posture, they were also stealing from their clients.
On the other hand, snatching of bags using the motorbike, car break-ins, attacking people in isolated areas have become rampant in the metropolis.
As a result, uniform and plain-clothed police officers have been deplored all over the metropolis to arrest such people.
Customers who use their ATMs in the night are attacked with knifes and their money collected from them. People can no longer walk freely, at the weekend.
The Western Regional Police Commander, DCOP Alhaji Hamidu Mahama, said even though most of these cases were not reported to the police, they, through their intelligence machinery picked those signals.
He said with the clamour for limited jobs in the oil industry across the country and movement of the people to the region accounted for that situation.
The commander said request for jobs had also given birth to fake employment agents in Takoradi with some posing as agents for Kosmos Energy, Tullow Oil Ghana and other oil firms.
The police said they had received several complaints from oil companies and oil-related service providers of people using their logos to design employment and training forms and selling them to unsuspecting members of the public.
The Regional Police Command has, however, warned prospective job seekers in the oil sector to beware of these fake agents.
It said a suspect arrested had designed a letterhead and employment forms with the name Opet Oil Company, which he sold for GH¢20.00 and collected an agency fee of GH¢700.00 from his victims.
Another aspect is the introducton of gambling and heavy smoking at most bars.
Rent and Rent Control
Rent for residential facilities have also increased more than 800 per cent in some places. A four bedroom house in Takoradi, which used to go for about GH¢200 a month, is currently been rented for $700.00 and the rents are non negotiable.
Owning a property in the Western Region, especially in the Twin-City of Sekondi/Takoradi is a lucrative venture. In some areas, people have even demolished their toilets and developed the space into a sleeping place.
Landlords of such houses then tell the tenants to make use of the public toilet in the community.
The rent control office said, it had lost count of the number of cases pending before it as landlords were seriously trying to eject their tenants.
It said some of the landlords do not even serve eviction notices to the existing tenants before forcing them out of the houses.
These residential facilities are then converted into offices for financial institutions or a company trying to provide one service or the other to the oil fields.
“These conversions are not necessarily for the oil companies but rather oil- related businesses such as the banks or other services,” it said.
Others try to increase the rent and where the existing tenants are not able to pay, they are asked to move out.
At the moment, people who hitherto would not rent their apartment, are giving them out to make some money.
As for the people who live in the central business district, the landlords there are ejecting them and converting their homes into offices.
The vibrant nature of the twin-city has bounced back as there has been extension in nightlife activities leading to increase in entertainment spots in the metropolis.
Gone are the days when entertainment was limited to highlife at Harbour View and the then Atlantic Hotel.
Weekend in the twin-city starts from Friday night with constant Western Region styled live band music which see most of these expatriates dancing to the rhythms in their own way.
That aside, there are restaurants which provide both local and international dishes. Most of these food joints and restaurants are operated by local people.
There is also a serious development of beach hotels and resorts which receive visitors from all parts of the metropolis- Casablanca to Last Hour beach in Takoradi.
Interestingly, these entertainment spots receive only few expatriates since jobs in the oil and gas industry, especially offshore, is an energy-consuming venture.
Therefore, most of the expatriates, who return from the rigs, either fly out in a day or two or immediately. But the locals are seen mostly at the bars discussing their experiences on various rigs offshore.
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