Opinions of Thursday, 1 November 2012

Columnist: Tamakloe, Kojo

Ghana ‘s December election , the choices we face

Kojo Tamakloe

The NPP generally has made it that some people have a “ herd mentality” . It also accuses anyone not supporting it to be an Anti Akan ., a tribalist or a hater of Akans. .In my own small way I have tried hard to fathom why this should be a factor . I look at these as trivialization of a serious issue. Perhaps that feeds in with our lack of relevant education and the need to bring in STEMIC , education . As some of us have said , the NPP and Free SHS is not original and does not solve Ghana problems . This campaign should be solution based . What is the use of giving a kid free SHS but the kid is hungry and comes home to no electricity, no clean water, no toilet and most likely sleep on the floor
Ghana’s imports

“Meat imports account for almost 90% of the meat consumed in the west African country of Ghana. Whilst there are productive farming enterprises rearing animals for slaughter they are not on a large enough scale to sustain a growing population hungry for high quality, good value protein.” Culled from encyclopedia Ghana imports nearly $1bn worth of meat annually. Will educating and helping the farmers produce more not be a more relevant solution and put money in the pockets of these people to be able to pay school fees without depending on Ghana and tax receipts for such a venture
• 2009 • Ghana imports of fish amounts to $200,000,000 annually to make up for the annual deficit, ... In most parts of the world aquaculture contributes to the global supply of fish, and in Ghana, ...Aquaculture has only recently been adopted as an assured way of meeting the deficit in Ghana's fish .... How will the parties promote this

Ghana is the sixth largest importer of sugar in the world. ... Ghana currently spends about 500 million dollars annually to import 300,000 tones of sugar, ...That is for a population of 25 million and it is the 6th largest importer

Let us look at how much we import by way of electronic goods, textiles , machinery and other high value items . We have total silence on these and we all rejoice about Free SHS , cost of which we are still not sure of. Why do we not just construct computer models , put in the parameters and have the answers. But that is the problem of not knowing ICT

“ Small minds” and big minds do big things. Excuse me what is big minded about copying an old idea and flogging it and your lap dog supporters hailing as a salvation . How is the big mind going to solve corruption. “We will use an old principle practiced by Ex Prez Mills.”

Let us go back to basics , get food security, put into place reduction of housing deficit, plan our cities and towns, make them clean and create jobs for the citizenry

The writer Kojo Tamakloe, a Pan Africanist believes Nkrumaism leading to African unity is the solution to out under development