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Opinions of Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Columnist: Tawiah, Francis

Ghana Today! No Electricity, No Water But Mobile Phones

Poor and corrupt governance, bad roads, no running water, no constant flow of electricity power, government chasing loans for no infrastructure and development, using acquired loans and the few internal resources to Building political strategic Walls instead of Schools, collapsed health insurance scheme, Ghana Cedi falling from minute to minute, businesses are collapsing almost everywhere in the country, "Better Ghana Agenda" is a foreign language in Ghana.

As the construction crews of international mobile telephone companies continuously expand their businesses everywhere in Ghana building new cell towers, they at the same time visit residents convincing Landlord by offering them free of charge house painting as an advertisement to boost customers, of course a gesture of generosity. So they have painted whole towns: Vodafone 'red', GLO 'green', MTN 'yellow' and many others, with their outstanding logos and colourful posters shining like the huts in Ghana, competitively advertising for customers.

Meanwhile most streets in Ghana are extreme bad and impassable. The electric power goes out often, only very few towns enjoy running water in Ghana but Mobile Phones work almost everywhere, in the villages and towns. Seven out of ten Ghanaians use cell phones regularly, ("everywhere you go"). Every few kilometres stand up steel transmission towers in the sky.

Mobile phone companies are busily fixing their things but Ghana government is not in the capacity to fix the economy, despite our resources and the gargantuan international loans acquired.

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)