THE BIBLE SAYS WHERE LEADERS LACK VISION MY PEOPLE PERISH.
THE BIBLE SAYS WHERE LEADERS LACK VISION MY PEOPLE PERISH.
Venom 10 years ago
This article is pointless & nonsensical.
This article is pointless & nonsensical.
Paa Kwesi Mintah 10 years ago
Sloppy Sentence:
"It is sometimes very much worrying for people to engage in cheap and silly talk, or in pontifications and prescriptions, to what government ought to do, or should have done but did not do, or could do in ... read full comment
Sloppy Sentence:
"It is sometimes very much worrying for people to engage in cheap and silly talk, or in pontifications and prescriptions, to what government ought to do, or should have done but did not do, or could do in the foreseeable future to fix our myriad problems in Ghana."
Elegant Version:
"It is worrisome that people engage in cheap and idle talk while proposing solutions to the myriad problems facing the nation."
Lie #1:
" We elect leaders to plan and provide a vision for us to achieve the better life for the majority of the people, what is usually termed the greatest good for the largest number of people, implicitly enshrined in the social contract to govern in the public interest."
Throwing words and jargon about do not make shore up any argument or transform a lie. There's absolutely NO social contract anywhere, signed by anyone or even implicitly stated in any laws, that binds elected leaders.
Elective offices are usually term limited and anyone seeking to renew a mandate to serve is accountable to the people at the polls. Elected leaders serve ALL the people and not just a "majority" of the people as you state.
English Puzzle:
What is "miniscule few"? as in the following sentence of yours:
"We now have the situation of the greatest national booty going to the miniscule few, who happen to be leading."
You mean they're "tiny pinheads" and few? Cousin, words, words, words, you're fond of overusing them tautologically! Ebei.
Cousin, I know it's been a while since we rode Ebenezer on a scenic route outside Winneba, but need you take us on another scenic but historic route picking up Jehovah Witnesses, lambasting them and their beliefs and finally dropping them off at a Lutheran Church where they can read Martin Luther's 95 thesis? How long did this trip take and what's the connection between such mindless deviation to your topic? You see what that powerful Zambian beer does to you?
Perhaps you're rather ".....coterminous, conjoined, intertwined and inseparable." with your penchant for running synonyms to show you speak better English than Efutu.
This time, you exhibit such high intensity in your "Listology" pathology. Without a preacher's license you delved into a partial biblical narrative as follows:
"Be that as it may, the ancient Israelites clamoured for a King like their neighbours did, and they had their first King, King Saul. He was to be followed by others such as David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Jereboam, Uzziah, Ahab, among others. Before then, they were led by prophets and priestly personages such as Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Zadok, Samuel, among others"
I don't know what else I'll encounter in this bait and switch topic of yours but I'm sure to meet all the prominent figures of history and economics by the time I am done reading your article. I produce my commentary by your paragraphs and I tremble to venture to the next. Sigh, here I go.
I hear another idle talk about "agriculture and multiplier effect on GDP", whatever that means. And as I read further, I see a long list coming, faintly revealing itself and it gets brighter as I draw near and bam! I am hit in the face, screaming bloody murder. Bloody murder, cousin. Another Listology:
"Currently, we have serious problems in our institutions such as GYEEDA, SADA, TOR, ECG, GHAPOHA, GJA, GFA, NMC, IRS, GPS, MCCEs, among others. What are we planning to do to stop the rot in these state institutions"
Aaarhh. Enough! Then I see my name:
"Critics like Paa Kwesi Mintah might argue that Ghanaians in the Diaspora are more qualified than those expatriates."
Cousin, not really. It's not about qualifications and degrees etc. It's all about positive attitude and willingness to serve honor. Our own people have failed us and I'll give anyone a chance, including Micky Mouse.
How did you develop this bad habit of yours with word serialization? Most times you can't help yourself with just one expression, it has to be two or three or four. Here's an exhibit of your guilt:
"A huge backlog of wage bill hangs over the paymaster–general's head like the sword of Damocles, or like an albatross around his neck."
Cousin, it took such uncommon act of bravery to finish your article. By midway it devolved into the usual complain and Listology prescription, including the building of a new capital.
You may be a good guy and I'll trust you with the antlers of our Tuafo deer hunt, but you'll never earn my vote to an elective office. Why? As much as I love you, I'll never vote for you. You're as bad, if not worse, than the people you're complaining about.
After going through your usual list of complaints and predictably taking a swipe at the Ghanaian leadership, you come up with a nuclear fart of suggestion that:
" or is it time to build a new capital for Ghana?"
You lost me after that suggestion. Perhaps the new capital will be located by your Dentsifo Koo boi's shrine. How can you make such a ridiculous suggestion?
When are you going to stop speaking in tongues?
Saaalute, from forehead to waist with a thundering foot stomp amid wild applause, whaaam.
Kobia Amenfi Oti Akenten 10 years ago
This Cousin PKM amazes me with his equally long, tortile and anourous rebuttal. He seems to have a lot of time on his hands, taking his Cousin's work to the cleaners, and tearing apart his work into shreds and smithreens. Ama ... read full comment
This Cousin PKM amazes me with his equally long, tortile and anourous rebuttal. He seems to have a lot of time on his hands, taking his Cousin's work to the cleaners, and tearing apart his work into shreds and smithreens. Amazing! You and your Cousin are all a birds of the same feather.
Linda 10 years ago
Geez, I dozed off reading this article. It's way too long and uses too many bombastic words.
Geez, I dozed off reading this article. It's way too long and uses too many bombastic words.
C.Y. ANDY-K 10 years ago
Gosh! You really took him to the cleaners! But it is all for fun though, among savants equal to any in Gulliver's Travels.:-)
Couldn't resist the temptation to join the fray, so brace yourselves!
The apology for the use ... read full comment
Gosh! You really took him to the cleaners! But it is all for fun though, among savants equal to any in Gulliver's Travels.:-)
Couldn't resist the temptation to join the fray, so brace yourselves!
The apology for the use of the phrase religion being opium of the masses is rather due to good, old K. Marx, rather than Chairman Mao.
Like you said, Kwesi has a good heart but perhaps the pulpit will be a choice vocation since he is a believer to boot. Myself being an unrepentant and unabashed pagan in its truest meaning of unbeliever in any deity, not the idol worshipper commonly associated with it by Africans, I take a deem view of the believers, even more than they take of me. Can we say the conduct of African Christians is any better than the conduct of the white Christians who ran the slave trade and colonised us? Nope! The problem is the religion itself!
His litany of woes was quite expansive. As a friend and a colleague, Dr Chris O., now prematurely deceased, used to remind me in my own days of such litanies in the '90s, "but Andy, if we don't have those things then we cannot be grouped among the LDCs and called developing people? We'd be among the civilised nations!" So last year, after 500 yrs of association with the whites and nearly 30 years of living amongst them, I declared myself civilised and no longer among the developing people in one outburst to my senior brother, Efo Solo. He is the one who has become an activist and revolutionary in his retirement years and been campaigning against the raw oil deals our new, modern "leaders", "the new slave traders," had legislated for us reminiscent of the C19th minerals grab by the colonialists! By the Cultural Theory of Devt, I moved up Rostow's ladder. Splendid! That was before Ken Kuranchie went to prison for only 10 days and came back to declare that "Ghanaians are not civilised", something I knew even as a kid and had been saying in cyberspace since the 90s! So if you had read me somewhere claiming that the cosmology and cosmogony of Ghanaians/Africans have not evolved beyond the Weberian, primitive substantive rationality level, then you had heard me saying Ghanaians are not civilised! So you see, we are faced with the impossible task of uncivilised people creating a civilsed nation/country!
We have a family joke which goes like this. When Gbedema led Nkrumah and his associates to solicit support from Torgbui Sri II, aka Cornelius Kofi Kwawukume, to kick the white people out of Ghana, he gave his consent but requested that they should leave one for him! And man, he was no reactionary! He was very much advanced in age and and almost blind but his faculties were still as sharp as a young man! He knew that without the support of the white men, he couldn't have succeeded with many of the reforms and changes he championed which catapulted the residents of the former Slave Coast to the heights they enjoyed today with education being the main trust! And for any reader thinking he was just an illiterate chief, you are very wrong. He was more educated, enlightened and aware than many graduates today, having completed Standard 7, btw, and then self-educated himself. How many of you can speak German (his 1st school in Togo), English, French and a host of West African languages, stretching from Sa Leone to the Cameroon, both places where he stayed as a merchant for many years before ascending the throne in 1906/7? Those were the kind of leaders who made the Gold Coast the model colony with a per capita equal to Korea and Eastern Europe by 1960! When people like, Ofori Atta, Nene Azu Mate Kole, etc., assumed leadership, slaves were still being kept by Gold Coasters! The positive changes they brought within 30 years were far greater than the changes we have seen since independence.
What kind of so-called "leaders" do we have today? Who born them? What is their track record before coming into such leadership positions? What visions for the public good have they expressed somewhere, in writings or in speeches? What are their values and private aspirations? Are they keeping a relation's or someone's child who dropped out of school as a maid servant or house boy instead of helping to pay the small fee that sent the poor soul out of school? Crucial qs we are yet to ask and answer in Ghana/Africa.
On recruiting expats, expats are not necessarily more educated or skilled than locals or Ghanaian Diasporian equally educated as them. The defining difference is exposure, dedication, loyalty and honesty, which last 2 attributes can be betrayed by expats as well, and as they often do. I can tell you stories from the CPP era concerning the setting up of the Workers Brigade when even one of such expats stole £1m.
When my junior brother was then the Solicitor/Local Manager of Ghana Re-insurance Company and he was sent on a month's course here in London, he discovered that he was more qualified than the course lecturers who were industry gurus in the insurance biz in the City supervising billion £ss portfolios! They were surprised that he managed to pass all those exams from Ghana and they couldn't in London! He left that outfit later in disgust to set up privately.
There were very few Gold Coasters with education and skills considered as tertiary when Ghana got independence, just about 800 and my dad was one of them. But that was far, far higher than Nigeria had! The whole of E. Africa had only 5 or so! Congo had only 1, it had been reported!
My dad and his English partner were contracted by the CPP to set up the Accounting dept. of the Workers Brigade after liquidating the Gonja Settlement Scheme in Damongo. We were there when President Mahama was born, just as two of my younger siblings, perhaps in the same Govt Hospital and same midwife that delivered Mahama. His partner became the 1st Financial Comptroller and my dad the Deputy. When his partner eventually left Ghana, my dad acted until other white expats were recruited, with the mistaken belief still prevailing about white superiority. They all turned out to be quite useless and my dad had to do all the tasks for them to just sign! One even stole the £1m which my father discovered after he left on leave and never returned. He was very livid of course! If John Holt Bartholomew found him capable enough to appoint him as their first black Administrative Manager with over 20 whites underneath him, not to mention the 100s of African staff, at a time when S. Africa was getting Apartheid, it was appalling for him that people like Nkrumah and all his Ministers without the track record he had still thought only a white man could head the Accounting Dept of the Workers Brigade! He was again acting as the Head when the coup occurred. The most galling was the refusal to pay his full entitlements to him even after winning court cases against the Att.-Gen's Dept because that was considered too high for a Ghanaian, and certainly above the civil service salary table. Absorbing him into the civil service was a problem, as that would have meant lower emoluments attached to the post. The last attempt was in the mid-1970s when he received a letter to come for an interview for the post of Principal Accountant. He didn't turn up. It was suggested later that he relinquish his post and be recruited back on a new contract, to begin with, to audit the Customs and Excise, which hadn't been audited since the 1960s; something he started doing when he was posted to head the Long Room in Tema. Unfortunately, we the boys, 2 already in accountancy and all of us already seasoned in accounting, who were supposed to support him in the new firm decided to leave to Nigeria.
I have narrated the dilemma my father faced to put in stark reality the problem equally qualified Ghanaian Diasporians face in agreeing to go and work in Ghana when they are earning mega bucks abroad! I bet many of you know of the doleful experiences of people who returned home and smelled pepper. Whereas I find objectionable the idea of paying them expat scale salaries, which salaries are often higher than what those expats earn in their own countries, some accommodation must be made to pay such Ghanaians with skills and exposure weighted packages commensurate somehow to their standards/ earnings abroad. After all, whereas £800 can only get you a 2-bedroom house in London, besides council tax, etc., half of that can get you a big mansion with boys quarters in Ghana! And a whole gamut of things are far cheaper in Ghana. I don't therefore support Kufour paying his nephew or cousin $8000 to be his Secretary! Was he earning that much per month abroad?
Ok! Enough.
Andy-K
Paa Kwesi Mintah 10 years ago
Andy,
I was rolling on the floor through the first half of your post. I think I need to recruit you to check my wayward cousin and keep tabs on him since its such a monumental task keeping him in check. You're recruited an ... read full comment
Andy,
I was rolling on the floor through the first half of your post. I think I need to recruit you to check my wayward cousin and keep tabs on him since its such a monumental task keeping him in check. You're recruited and you'll do a great job.
The second half of your posting is serious. I could've filled in a whole lot I know as well but will let yours shine brightly for those who have no idea of the history of our nation.
I suggest you repackage the second half as an article by itself because its quite loaded.
I had grandmothers and aunts who never sat in a classroom but spoke better English with a Devonshire flavor than any of our SC judges. Anyway, I get goose bumps reading about Togbui Sri. The jokers we have today are no leaders.
Thanks for the rejoinder.
Kwesi Atta Sakyi 10 years ago
Let's form a troika or triumvirate on ghanaweb to check Ghana rather than Cousin, who is a patriot to hilt, to boot, to wit. Are you C.Y ANDY-K an illuminating and savvy soul who is au fait? You make me blush with your knowle ... read full comment
Let's form a troika or triumvirate on ghanaweb to check Ghana rather than Cousin, who is a patriot to hilt, to boot, to wit. Are you C.Y ANDY-K an illuminating and savvy soul who is au fait? You make me blush with your knowledge. Thanks so much for such priceless rejoinder and will be looking forward eargerly and hungrily to your invaluable input to my articles. You are appointed my critic or adversary in the academic fray.
THE BIBLE SAYS WHERE LEADERS LACK VISION MY PEOPLE PERISH.
This article is pointless & nonsensical.
Sloppy Sentence:
"It is sometimes very much worrying for people to engage in cheap and silly talk, or in pontifications and prescriptions, to what government ought to do, or should have done but did not do, or could do in ...
read full comment
This Cousin PKM amazes me with his equally long, tortile and anourous rebuttal. He seems to have a lot of time on his hands, taking his Cousin's work to the cleaners, and tearing apart his work into shreds and smithreens. Ama ...
read full comment
Geez, I dozed off reading this article. It's way too long and uses too many bombastic words.
Gosh! You really took him to the cleaners! But it is all for fun though, among savants equal to any in Gulliver's Travels.:-)
Couldn't resist the temptation to join the fray, so brace yourselves!
The apology for the use ...
read full comment
Andy,
I was rolling on the floor through the first half of your post. I think I need to recruit you to check my wayward cousin and keep tabs on him since its such a monumental task keeping him in check. You're recruited an ...
read full comment
Let's form a troika or triumvirate on ghanaweb to check Ghana rather than Cousin, who is a patriot to hilt, to boot, to wit. Are you C.Y ANDY-K an illuminating and savvy soul who is au fait? You make me blush with your knowle ...
read full comment