Ghana Airways Workers: If only the vulture knew.... A Rejoinder.

This writer do sympathise with Ohene Agyin (Ghana Web 10th April 2005) regarding his criticism of the Ghana Airways employees and their contribution towards the collapsed of the national carrier. However there are others involved, including various officials from past governments who thought the airline was their private properties, thus hitching free ride whenever they want.

Many Ghanaians in Diaspora and friends of Ghana suffered unnecessarily at the hands of Ghana Airways officials in Europe and North America during the summer of 2004. This writer?s daughter and a friend (both aged 16yrs at the time of the crisis) visiting Ghana for the first time to connect with their heritage and to collect materials for their final year at high school project had to endure 4 months of travelling to and from Kotoka International Airport until they were able to hitch a ride home.

The difficulties and the stress that the 2 young teenage girls went through mirror the difficulties that Ohene Agyin recounted in his article. It is for this very reason that Ghanaians in Diaspora and friends of Ghana actively backed and campaigned for the need to have an independent Airline and ?not charter flights? to operate alongside the proposed new carrier ? Ghana International Airlines.

It is true that the GIA issue was badly managed by Richard Anane, but this writer was able to obtained a concrete assurance from J.Ralph Atkin that the proposed new carrier will fly again. This writer quoted the said assurance in a related article for the whole world to read, thus laid to rest the issue the national airline not flying at all.

Anane might be an embattled minister who is fighting for his political career or integrity, but this writer, who is very impartial in the whole political debate is directly appealing to the media to give Dr Richard Anane and Mr Kwodwo Mpiani the opportunity to get the GIA project up and running. On the same breath, this writer, together with the President?s junior brother, Appiah Danquah Kufuor appeal to Francis Poku and his security team to give Luke Norman Butler and his Afra Airlines Team the opportunity to operate their Airline line business. It is true that Luke might have offended the powerful Air Pilots Association in the past through his business dealing with them, but as Appiah Danquah Kufuor pointed out in his related articles, everyone should be given a second chance in life to prove what they can do.

Luke might have also offended some ?powerful people? including Richard Anane, but then it is important that we safeguard his investment and not to bring the country?s financial health into conflict with other potential investors. Rent-seeking within the government and among party functionaries should be banish to where it belongs??..the gutter. Most commentators, including eminent Ghanaian academics and others such Dr Robert Baffour Awuah, Kwaku Asare (popularly known as Kwaku Azar, Kofi Ellison, Guy Foxx, Ako Folson, J.A Fukuor (Mr President), Appiah Danquah Kufuor, Mr CNN, Ampofo Ofori, Ben Ofosu-Appiah, Alfred Opoku, Nana Osei, Kwabena Osei-Dadzie, Paa Kwesi Plange, Kojo Poku, John Ekow Bedu Woode, Adam Sheriff Yakubu, Naasei Akoto Sarfo and Ebenezer Banful in their various articles highlighted the menace of corruption, that if not checked would derail our quest to achieve middle Income status by 2020.

This writer and the commentators mentioned above and all others on the Ghana web page all share the dream???..and that is to see the country achieve the same economic prosperity like the Asian Tigers did in the 1980s and 1990s. This feeling of the above compatriots was summed up by Appiah Danquah Kufuor in his article about the politics that is threatening to engulf UDS: ??. we can do it? As a nation we have all the ?ingredients?, attributes, potential of becoming a great nation. We are at our best when we are united, at our best when we speak with one voice, at our best when we become each other?s keeper, at our best when there is no labelling.?

As the country enters a very dangerous phase of her development, it is imperative that we stand united to fight corruption and let honesty guide us towards our shared goals??. The Malaysians that we always compare ourselves with, under the able leadership of Dr Mahatiar Mohammed use all the talents and resources at their disposal to developed their country under 3 decades. The Chileans did it in a decade. All the countries that had their economies structured have all seen some level of improvements in the living standards of their citizens????

The new crop of leaders emerging in all the 3 major parties share the same dreams and aspirations as every Ghanaian. In the NPP, Papa Owusu Ankomah?s faultless rise and his distaste for corruption has made him a very credible candidate for his party?s presidential nomination. The CPP, as it seems are actively trying to draft the younger son of Dr Kwame Nkrumah to be their flag bearer. Although Dr Sekou Nkrumah does not have any political experience in the literal sense, but his determination to help the downtrodden in the land of his forbearers, the country that his late father devoted his whole adult life for is what makes him unique. Dr Sekou Nkrumah has now set up camp in his father?s old house (ironically Dr Nkrumah, like Dr Kofi Busia, Dr Hilla Liman and Dr Danquah, died destitute and with no tangible assets to his name). The call to duty shown by these two great sons of the motherland is what underpins their ambition to see that prosperity, when it! comes would be equitably spread among all citizens.

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.