Features
Abandoned projects: Ghana’s monument to neglect (Part 1)
Monuments of all types abound in Ghana. We have the slave castles, forts, national parks, and all kinds of important relics that remind us of our history, arts, culture, and other aspects of our national life. Good stuff. Besides, they earn us some money.
I refer here to monuments like the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, the slave castles and forts, the Kakum National Park with its canopy walkway which is one of just three such eco-tourism attractions in Africa, our beach resorts, waterfalls, and many more, not leaving out the recently refurbished Ghana National Museum in Accra.
But these are not my concern in this article. I am thinking about another kind of monument which has earned Ghana as much notoriety as those listed above have earned us fame. The monuments I have in mind evoke a sense of anger, disappointment, and even shame. Collectively, I designate them as a monument to neglect.
These include infrastructural projects that have been abandoned mid-construction, left in ruins, at the mercy of the elements, and begging for attention. They have become white elephants, so to speak.
They come in all shapes and forms – construction projects including housing schemes, educational and health facilities, factories, sports amenities, roads, and highways. Very lofty and laudable projects one may say.
They are announced with pomp and pageantry. Chiefs of the project areas and other dignitaries, including ambassadors of sponsoring countries grace the occasion, and political speeches are made about who is doing better than who.
The date of completion is boldly announced, expectations are raised, and work begins in earnest. But before long, the projects are abandoned midway through construction. For what purpose are they started at all? To tickle our fancy? If they are more trouble than they are worth, why start them in the first place?
I still do not get it. I do not know why we sign contracts for specific projects, sink substantial sums of money into them only to leave them to go waste without any scruples. Why? How could we be so cruel as to dissipate funds we borrow for such projects in such wanton manner?
If it were your own money, would you waste it like that? Even the prodigal son who wasted his share of his father’s estate, realised his mistake, and picked up the pieces. Not so with Ghana. From Nkrumah’s time, any change of Ghana has led to abandonment of on-going projects. Even incumbents abandon their own projects.
Upon reflection, I think I know the reason. It is a deadly combination of criminal negligence, apathy, ignorance, and insensitivity on the part of the managers of our scarce resources conspired to turn otherwise valuable and enviable projects into useless structures.
We do not get any use from them, neither can we siphon our investment and direct it to other profitable ventures. Our money is just squandered and that is it. No qualms about that. Really? Yes, if anyone cared, heads would have rolled all this while to serve as a deterrent to the callous perpetrators of such nefarious crimes against the state. Saboteurs! That is what they are.
Needless to say, projects that are started and never completed, devour a huge chunk of our scarce national resources. Some analysts believe that such abandoned projects consume as much as a tenth of Ghana’s capital expenditure and then are left to go to waste.
Other experts are not so charitable. They reckon that abandoned projects account for as much as a fourth, or even a third of Ghana’s capital outlay, only to reap losses because any potential gain evaporates into thin air due to the uselessness of the enterprise.
Whatever the percentage, one thing is without controversy. We are losing scarce resources and we do not seem to have any clear strategy to stop the drain. Some examples of such dissipative expenditure on abandoned projects will serve to place the magnitude of this fiscal waste in the right perspective.
The multi-million-dollar Saglemi Affordable Housing Project at Prampram, initiated by the previous administration of the NDC now in opposition, readily comes to mind.
The project sits on a 300-acre land and comprises a 5,000-unit residential facility to accommodate middle and low-income earners within Accra and its enviros and reduce the housing deficit in the metropolis.
When the NDC left office in 2016, the first phase of the project which consisted of 180 blocks with 1,500 residential units, had been completed at the cost of $200 million.
But due to allegations of financial impropriety in procurement and inconsistencies in contract documents handed over by the previous administration, the ruling NPP led government has left the contract in abeyance.
Besides, no allocation of the completed flats has been made, and the people for whom the project was undertaken, are the worse for it.
In fact, a recent documentary on the project depicted a sad story of deterioration of parts of the project. Glass windows and other amenities like fixtures in the kitchens and bathrooms had been damaged and the lawn overgrown.
Greatness has been showered on us by Providence, but we do not seem to believe in ourselves. We have been endowed with everything it takes to be among the greatest nations on the planet. Dr. Nkrumah proved it with gigantic infrastructural projects to put Ghana up among the stars.
That gave Ghana the confidence to boast about being unprecedented leaders in so many fields. After him, we have continued to lead the way, but we are only trailblazing in reverse. Nkrumah’s slogan: “Forward ever, backward never,” has been turned on its head.
The American author and publisher, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name, Mark Twain, says:“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do…Explore, Dream, Discover.”
Ziad K. Abdelnour, a Lebanese-American investment banker, financier, author, and activist famously said: “Words are useless without action. Stop fantasising and just DO it. Be a game changer or get played like an idiot.” In other words, deeds, not words.
The empty platitudes and political rhetoric must give way to concrete programmes to produce positive change for Ghanaians to reach the sky where they really belong, where eagles tread.
To reach the mountain top is a long and arduous journey. But how we climb the mountain is more important than reaching the top. It will take time but if we plan well, we would not start a project without much reflection and abandon it at great cost to the nation.
Thirty-eight-year-old successful American entrepreneur, Ryan Allis who started his own digital company, Allis Computing at age 11, shows us the way, if only we would be humble enough to borrow a leaf from his proven principles.
He says: “Have the end in mind and every day make sure you’re working towards it.”
To be continued.
Contact: teepeejubilee@yahoo.co.uk
By Tony Prempeh
This week I have a very strong desire to put on my Apostolic Cap and talk about the power available to children of God which we can utilise to generate positive outcomes, in our lives.
There is a phrase in the Bible that if Christians meditate on, can immensely transform their lives. In Matthew 28:6 there is a phrase “… as he said…” according to the King James Version.
Thus phrase forms part of a statement declared by an angel of God to two women who were disciples of Jesus who had gone to his tomb early in the morning on the third day after his death.
According to the Biblical account, the stone covering the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away and an Angel was sitting on it and he made the statement to the effect that the Jesus they are seeking is not there and that he had risen, as he said before his death.
His resurrection affirmed the authenticity and dependability of the word of Jesus and therefore the word of God.
Christianity has to do with faith in the word of God. Pastor Mensa Otabil said if we view Christianity as an inside out view, you would go inside to operate the power that is in you.
As a Christian, the spirit of God and therefore the power of God, dwells in you. Anyone who is aware of this truth, does not go around seeking to have a so called powerful person resolve his or her spiritual issues.
Most Christians who move from prophet to prophet, do not believe that the spirit of God which operates in a Pastor or Prophet, is the same spirit that dwells in him or her.
In fact , that Christian may be more ‘powerful’ than the Prophet or Pastor he is going to for prayers because he is living a holy life, which is pleasing to God, for God is no respecter of persons according to Acts 10:34-35.
God does not give out his spirit in different measures to indwell believers. The spirit of God that dwells in a new convert, is the same spirit that dwells in a Bishop or a Prophet or an Evangelist or an Elder or a Deacon.
All you need to do as a child of God is to believe in the word of God and know that it works and that according to 1 John 4:4 we, Christians, that the Spirit of God dwells in us have overcome the world and Jesus in us, is greater than the Devil who is out in the world, wrecking havoc all around.
If we realise that we have overcome the Devil and everything he controls, then we can believe and act in faith and make declarations and just as Christ declared that he will die and on the third day, he will rise from the dead and it manifested as he said, there shall be a manifestation of our declarations also.
The problem of modern day Christians is that, a lot of them, do not study and meditate on the word of God, so they do not witness the manifestation of the power of God, in their lives.
Such an experience over time, give them the impression that the spirit of God dwells in different dimensions in believers. This then leads them to seek solutions to their challenges from so called powerful men of God.
Some Pastors also fall into this misconception of the measure of the spirit of God in believers. When the size of a Pastor’s church for instance, is not increasing the way he had been praying for self-doubt sometimes begin to set in.
Especially, if he begins to compare his church with that of say a colleague from the same Bible School, then he begins to wonder if there is not a spiritual secret he is not aware of.
This is when, if care is not taken, fellow Pastors who appears to be very successful in the ministry but are using occultic powers, could sway them from the narrow path and get them trapped in the Devil’s clutches and eventually and inevitably, destroy their lives. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
Introduction
You have been there. Twenty tabs open comparing laptops. A blank page for an email you’ve been “thinking about” for three days. A menu with 30 options and you leave hungry.
This is decision paralysis: the state where the volume of information, options, or perceived stakes prevents you from making a decision at all. It’s not laziness. It’s a cognitive overload response.
In a data-rich environment, it’s becoming the default mode for both individuals and organisations.
This article breaks down why it happens, how it shows up, what it costs, and how to break it.
1. What decision paralysis actually is?
Decision paralysis is a failure of the decision-making system to convert information into action. Psychologists call it ‘analysis paralysis’ or ‘choice overload.’
It has three components:
1. Cognitive overload: Working memory can hold between four to seven chunks of information at once. When you try to track 20 variables, the system freezes.
2. Anticipatory regret: You overestimate the pain of making the wrong choice. The brain avoids the emotional cost by avoiding the choice.
3. Ambiguity aversion: Humans prefer known risks over unknown ones. When outcomes are uncertain, we stall.
The result is not neutral. Not deciding is a decision. It costs time, momentum, and opportunity
2. Why it’s getting worse now
2.1 Infinite options
Amazon has 350 million products. Netflix has 6000+ titles. Dating apps have unlimited profiles. The paradox of choice: more options increase initial satisfaction but decrease final satisfaction and increase regret.
2.2 Information abundance without synthesis
You can find 50 studies on sleep. Each one has caveats, conflicting results, and different methodologies. Without a framework to integrate them, more data creates more confusion, not clarity. This connects directly to the “data-rich, wisdom-poor” problem.
2.3 Reversibility anxiety
In the digital age, most decisions feel permanent. A bad post goes viral. A bad hire is public on LinkedIn. A bad career move is visible. The fear of irreversible error makes people delay.
2.4 Algorithmic mirroring
Platforms show you what you already engage with. This creates an illusion that there’s one ‘best’ option you are missing. You keep searching, convinced the optimal choice is one more scroll away.
3. How it shows up
Personal Level
Cannot pick a career path after six months of ‘research’
Spend two hours choosing a movie and watch nothing
Delay sending an email because it ‘isn’t perfect’
3.1 Organisational level
Teams spend 80 per cent of time in meetings gathering data, 20 per cent deciding
Product teams delay launch waiting for “one more data point”
KPIs multiply but no strategic choice is made
3.2 Common cognitive tells:
Endless comparison tables
Asking for one more opinion
Reframing the problem instead of solving it
Feeling drained after thinking but not acting
By Robert Ekow Grimmond-Thompson
