Stop looting the economy

And Save, Create Jobs, and Create a Fair Society. A Plea to our Government Leaders! A Plea for Change!

The Convention Peoples Party under Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah inherited a colonial legacy in which both the colonialists, and public servants, thought of looting the wealth of our Country without regards to the consequences on the nation and her people. Do we have to continue whatever the colonialists did? According to quotations in the book by Dr. Kwaku Abiam Danso (2007), “Leadership Concepts and the Role of Government in African: The Case of Ghana”, Lawyer Dominic deGraft Aidoo (former SFO Director) argues that political corruption started with the colonial administrations.

Perhaps one cannot blame the colonial masters at all, because their main objective was to exploit Africa. For that matter, Ghana was no exception. When they set foot on the Gold Coast, they did whatever suited them. They built bungalows for their comfort, purchased vehicles for their private use with the State paying drivers, free petrol, and enjoyed the services of maid servants, watchmen, garden boys, water, telephone, electricity and all other protocols free. It was part of doing business for them. The more they took from the state coffers, the less profit it showed. Whatever happened to Ghana under the colonial masters belongs to history and students of history can best attest to them. The obnoxious and painful slave trade is undeniably part of our history under the colonial rule, and much has been said and written about this.

When Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention Peoples Party fought and attained our independence in 1957, one would have thought that all the bad policies like enjoying everything free under the guises of privileges that drained our national income, should have been scrapped. Who knows, may be if Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had not been overthrown, he may have reviewed that policy somewhere along the way to save money for needed development. Maybe it was simply an oversight also or a mistake in policy implementation. Since Nkrumah’s overthrow in 1966, Ghana has had nine successive Governments to date, and because the colonial policy with the privileges favors the executive, NONE has ever thought about changing the system! This behavior by successive Governments can only be attributed to SELFISHNESS AND GREED. When NPP was accused of having 88 Ministers and deputies and hence an over-bloated Government, as well as when accused of purchasing a fleet of expensive vehicles when the coffers were reported empty, they had no better answer than that the NDC DID THE SAME WHEN IN POWER. There are lots of other instances when the NPP had made similar references to the NDC, and that is very unfortunate indeed. If the NDC was doing everything right, there would have been no need for the many people who voted them into power in 1992 and 1996 to change their minds for the NPP. One would have thought that misuse of public funds that was so glaring under the NDC era would be changed under the NPP. However, it is the perception of many that the situation is worse now under them. Transparency International documents an increase in corruption. Do we need also to pay the colonial masters also as Consultants huge fees to show us how to determine right from wrong?

Successive Governments have enjoyed everything the colonial masters enjoyed till today while the majority of Ghanaians live under conditions worse than the days of slavery. Unfortunately this is under our own leaders. It is a shame! This situation is typical of the whole of Africa and there is complete genocide and chaos in most African Countries. Obviously, in most cases, this is due to greed, selfishness, social injustices tribalism and power drunkenness. Our leaders have disgraced our people and a change is called for! After all the years of colonization, slavery and the unfair world Economic order, the Western world has been magnanimous to us in terms of the offer of Loans, Aid and Grants for our socio-economic development aspirations. However, in most cases, part of these Loans end up in the private pockets of Politicians and their cronies, while the rest goes back to the agents of these World financiers. This practice had denied the poor in society basic needs in life. I will refer my readers to the link below titled GHANA BLEEDING FROM CRONY CAPITALISM, a Ghana web news item of 6th October 2005, and you will see how dubious, selfish and greedy our politicians then mismanaged our economy with impunity and contempt. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=91605

Most of these Government sponsored Loans granted by the NDC TO THEIR POLITICAL CRONIES, had since the article published in October 2005, not been paid and the NPP Government had started writing some off as BAD DEBTS, when the beneficiaries were and are still walking on the streets of Ghana. Last year, there was a revelation by the insight news paper that 36 billion Cedis had been used to set up Internet broad band communication services for Twenty one NPP officials. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=113842 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=113876 We should ask: How much is the cost of a computer? How much does it cost to install Broadband service in Ghana? Who accounts for this loss? Why has Parliament not done anything about this case?

Whether this was a true information or not, the opposition in Parliament did not call for any investigation to get to the bottom of the case because of cronyism. If the information or story was just to defame the Minister of information, I believe he would have sued the publishers in court. The case has since died a natural death because Ghanaian government is not accountable to the people that elected them. These revelations are just but few from the days of independence and most especially from 1966 till now with the NPP in Government. All these are evidence that Ghana’s socio-economic problems are mostly caused by selfishness, greed, corruption and misapplication of funds by our elected leaders without accountability. We are all witnessing the shameful decline in infrastructural and socio Economic development with thousands of our youth aimlessly wandering on our streets with no hope for the future. Water, a basic necessity of life cannot be delivered to the people. Power outage is seriously affecting the National economy as industries are not fully operating, and workers being laid off as a result. Some companies have to close their doors! Who is to blame? In spite of all these chaotic conditions in the country, the hardened supporters of NPP, will defend everything that the Government does; and so also will the hardened supporters of the P/NDC defend all that were done during their Nineteen years in Government. The blame game will not help us move forward, but there is a way forward. However we must learn to defend the interest of Ghana and not Parties. We need to sacrifice and resolve to stop the looting of the National wealth, save and create a fair society where there will be hope and opportunity for all Ghanaians.

The answer to Ghana’s socio economic problems, therefore, is to establish a new political direction with a development plan drawn by a committee of expects from all political parties; (A road map) that will be constitutionally mandatory on successive Governments to follow through. A new political direction that will make Government officials sign to a code of ethics and a public service accountability law that will make them accountable to the people and get punished for wrong doing under our constitution. A new direction that will prioritize our needs as a country, providing what are considered basic necessities of life first to our people. We must look to a future when society will be fair and offering opportunities for every Ghanaian based on the content of his brain and not just because his parent is a president, Minister, Parliamentarian, a top Government official or because of a persons affiliated with the ruling Government. This must be the Ghanaian and the African dream, and we must do this to prove to the world that the Blackman and for that matter the African, is capable of managing his own affairs. With several years of political deceit, greed and selfishness, the Ghanaian electorate do not believe anymore in politics and therefore have given up any hope for Ghana’s development. The Ghana National Party believe, that is just a perception of the people and it can be changed if there is a new breed of political class, prepared and committed to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow for all Ghanaians . It can be done, and some of us have already paid the down payment for such a new bridge to the future. Presently, people see politics as a gold mine. This must change. That is a wrong mindset, and we must make politics rather a public service and a very attractive calling with dignity, and encourage entrepreneurship, which should be the focus for our National development. Nobody can do this by themselves. Those who want to work together should stand up now before it’s too late. We need to make sacrifices to save our country, and do it now!!