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Opinions of Saturday, 18 January 2014

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

Ghana, 'We Are Dead Finished"

I am trying to bite my tongue and avoid insulting President Mahama's administration Ministers and Appointees for their juvenile and sophomoric utterances but the Mahama government gives me no choice than to tell them what they are. This administration has too many incompetent and unqualified Ministers and we witness this everyday by what these Ministers say and do but can we blame these Ministers when the one who appointed them is afflicted with the same mentality?Can you believe this statement came from a Minister?

"Roads and Transport Minister, Alhaji Amin Suleman, is asking various communities in the country with poor roads to find money to fix them and charge tolls to maintain them. "As a matter of fact, I wish that they encourage people who live in other communities to do similar things and call them community roads and then they could charge for maintenance."

Did the Minister think about the chaos such a policy will create on the populace? What is going to be the modalities of such a policy? I mean if Mr K repair one kilometer of a road and Mr T repair ten kilometers of a road, are they supposed to charge the same or Mr T will have to charge higher? Can you imagine how much toll you will pay if you have to travel from Accra to Kumasi?

First, our commerce will slow down due to constant stoppage of vehicles plying our roads and you must be prepared to travel from Accra to Kumasi by at least twelve hours with hundrends of toll barricades erected from Achimota to Fumesua.

Not only that,now armed robbers are going o have a field day as they can masquerade as community road toll collectors and stop cars at will to rob them because Drivers will be obliged to stop when they come to these toll collection spots. The lives of passengers and drivers are going to be in peril with this stupid policy in the offing.Is this stupidity the government policy or the Minister came up with this idiocy on his own? This shows how chaotic and uncordinated this government is. This administration has done stupid things but this idiocy takes the cake.

As a matter of fact I am going to invest a little bit of change and tar the 50 yards of road infront of my house and retire early and collect tolls. At least five hundred cars pass infront of my house everyday and if I charge one cedi per car, that is five hundred cedis a day, Gh3,500 a week, 14,000 cedis a month, about 6700 dollars a month. Now the road from Kejetia to my village is in a deplorable condition and I intend to erect a toll collection barricade for every mile of pot holes I fill and charge one cedi per car, five cedi for articulated trucks for the eight barricades it takes to reach my village from Kejetia and a mogul is going to be borned because all those going to Techiman and onwards to the three Northern regions pass through Buoho, my village. The cargo from Tema to Burkina Faso also pass through my village so imagine how much I am going to make a month, not less than $50,000 a month, Eureka!!!!! The Mahama administration is running away from its responsibilities and if this Minister was not serious about this, it would have been laughable but this is not a laughing matter considering President Mahama is hollow and shallow he might go ahead and enact such a policy. The implication of this Minister's statement is scary and Mahama should relieve this Minister from his position because he is not even qualified to be a dog catcher.

President Mahama's utterances and behaviour does not elicit any confidence either. This is a President who continue to behave and say things that are not Presidential and the latest is his comment about his Finance Minister, Seth Terkper when he said this;

"I’m the coach and I decide on who serves in my government,” President Mahama revealed that there is pressure mounting on him from within his own government to sack his finance Minister. “I mean several times they’ve interceded with me to sack Seth because he’s hurting the politics. He doesn’t understand the politics. ‘If there’s no money he should go and borrow’, as if it were that easy…It’s a vicious cycle we need to break and that is why a lot of the reforms that Seth is carrying out in the finance ministry with regards to the GIFMIS and making sure we budget properly and MDAs follow budget discipline and all that are issues that we’re trying to introduce,"

Does Mahama know he wields the Presidential gavel and has the power to appoint and sack whoever he doesn't need in his administration? If this was the first time, we could have chalked it as a mistake but when he has fumbled many times like his standing at the CNN Headquaters with their big logo behind him and smilling like an "Accidental Tourist" and his ill-advised vacation in United Arab Emirates during Christmas time and other numerous times to recount here, then we can confidently say this is a trend due to sorry to say, 'immaturity' or still being giddy for being President when he never thought of ever being one.

Maybe this is what President Mahama job creation policy is because the utterance of this Minister has employed all the Ndc 'kubolors',armed robbers and foot soldiers who were seizing toilets and making pennies when they can be making 'serious' money by enacting toll barries anywhere they like and charge what amount that fancies them without any repercussions, we have to get ready for the animal farm rule we are about to see.

Folks, we have seen the best of Mahama's presidency and we have to buckle tight in our seats because the next three years is not going be pretty.

Justice Sarpong

(CARDINAL of TRUTH)