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Opinions of Tuesday, 23 May 2017

Columnist: Sydney Casely-Hayford

But Becky why?

Sydney Casely-Hayford Sydney Casely-Hayford

Another trying week and too much back and forth like as if we are still in election season. A very strange feeling I have, that we cannot seem to step away from the campaign trail and get the real action going, even as we have settled the score and determined where we sit philosophically and politically.

Many are feeling sorry for John Mahama as he struggles to find a way to make himself relevant in a Ghana that has become very vigilant and attentive through social media.

If there is one thing we have going now, it’s this extra vigilance on social media platforms, everything circulating in tornado motion so rapidly that if you don’t read your whatsup notices every ten minutes, you miss bossing the “toli” first. Suddenly everybody has already heard it and seen the video before you can tell them and make it breaking news.

For me the great story of the week, believe or not was Nana Addo’s trip across West Africa to Senegal, Guinea and Cape Verde. Didn’t hear too much about what he did in Cape Verde and Guinea, but his visit to the slave dungeons in Senegal and the visit to the point of no return, signified a poignant time in history, which coincidentally has been his rallying call since he made the presidency, about making Ghana an industrial hub in West Africa and his determination to see it through no matter what has to be done. For me that translates into a no-return to the bad ways, a point of no return to a situation which has left us struggling to get bills paid and find some time to relax and enjoy this life just for a while.

So Nana seems to be working hard and the NDC talking heads are also working hard, taking matters to the US Securities Commission to come and investigate some transaction in the sale of Bonds we made. I am not sure if they are serious and whether it is fake news on social media, but is has to be the most misguided idea in our history. Worse than the one they had about buying power at the most ridiculous prices and giving away $150million to a broker when we could have negotiated that deal with Ameri and saved some cedis on the cost of living.

We managed to jump from nowhere. Skipping alpha, beta and gamma to end with a force on delta. The NPP party has albatrossed itself with this group of unruly persons and now every hooligan who breaks the law is classed as a member of this Delta Force by the opposition.

The arguments I heard from the minority side this past week that the Attorney General must go and look for more evidence to prosecute the Delta 8 is simply naïve and politically misplaced in the rule of law we are trying very hard to entrench in our democracy.

The State prosecutor pulled the case for lack of evidence to enable them to prosecute the culprits. The Attorney General has nothing to do at this stage than to ask the prosecutor to go back, talk to the police and let them gather more evidence for a later date. It avoids prosecuting them, losing the case and thus setting them free because you can’t prosecute for the same crime twice. We call it double jeopardy.

But instead of the opposition seeing this for what it means, they prefer to attack it as a politically motivated discharge and an attempt to free a group of NPP foot soldiers.

We have to get out of these politically derived situations just for the sake of point scoring and use a bit more common sense to build a case for the attention of the public. Until we start believing that there are no other motives than the ones on the table irrespective of the political divide we sit on, we will never win in the game of civilised society.

Let’s focus on the real issues facing us. This country is expensive and we need to see some money supporting activity so we can spend into an economy that is unwilling to kick start for the burden we carry as a legacy of bad economic policy created by incompetence.

We are hearing a lot of talk about projects and pillars to achieve industrialisation, but so far I have walked the corridors of key ministries and there is no indication of when Government will start supporting projects and programs that we can apply for to get the private sector moving.

If we don’t do anything at all, we have to reduce the cost of petrol, make electricity more affordable and get the cost of food down to manageable levels. We can only do this if we get out of the bad deals left from the policies of poor management by the NDC government and negotiate our way out of the expensive deals.

The NDC is planning to fight the next election on the legacy of their 2016 success and Dramani John is doing everything to scuttle what chance they are hallucinating about by constantly dreaming that the people of Ghana will still be fooled by his supposed sincere look and tone and his tripping across all the roads in Accra on a people’s bus, his face a prime reminder of what we should not do. If he listens to me, I say take those pictures down, you are constantly reminding us of GHC3.6million that we are looking for and don’t want to be rude about. We leave it to the long arm of the law.

We selected our Hero of Change with the MTN Foundation showing us what good corporate responsibility can achieve. The Jury awarded GHC100, 000 to a deaf and dumb lady who runs a school for deaf and dumb children in Obuasi and whose acceptance speech even though not heard, resounded so loudly in the National Theatre that she didn’t need to sign language a word. The audience spoke for her and we understood what struggling and perseverance can do in society. Something our politicians don’t know how to do. The pretence to be giving something up for the people is now not worth our lamentations. We have heard it all before and the big lesson to us sits with Genevieve Basigha our Hero for 2017. What an achiever!

So with all this going on and Nana Addo working so hard to get things right, I am thinking he is working late every day and not finding time to eat and sleep. But I was looking at clips of him in Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire and I said, “shiee” Becky what are you feeding the man? His stomach is riding too far ahead of his shoes. As he paddled along beside Macky Sall, shaking hands and speaking wonderful English and French, I say “why Becky why?” The recipe is fewer carbohydrates and more protein and fruits with regular exercise. I don’t think that is too difficult to find these days. There is a farmer in Upper West who is growing Strawberries during Harmattan and mango is in season. I have his number.

Ghana. Aha a y? d? papa. Alius valde week advenio. Another great week to come.