Features
How some people have underdeveloped Ghana
• Illegal mining activities have degraded our rich lands and polluted some of our water bodies, among others
When Nana Nkosuohene, the Odikro of Nkatiekrom swore before his people that he was determined to stamp out corruption from society, many were those who doubted him because previous leaders in that village could not measure up to that expectation.
However, when this Odikro assumed power and was installed as such, he began to come out with changes that in no time the entire community benefitted from. Until the time of this progressive and dynamic Odikro, many were those who felt that he could not implement his plans to make life better.
He kept telling his subjects that Rome was not built in a day, so if he was given the needed support, he would be able to come out with the desired results. With time, he proved his critics wrong and after some time, everyone turned round to praise the Odikro of Nkatiekrom, Nana Nkosuohene. Many were those who were involved in corrupt practices and laziness, a negative development that turned back the clock of progress. But determined as he was, Nana Nkosuohene was able to make progress and develop his community for the common good. This situation is comparable to what is happening in Ghana today.
HIGH HOPES
The high hopes of Ghanaians for quality life in the years after independence, having taken their political destiny into their own hands by virtue of their independence on March 6, 1957, were comparable to rains from the sky surely bound to fall to the ground.
So high were the hopes that, it was thought that within a few years after independence the country would be able to produce enough food and industrial goods to satisfy its needs and even have surplus for export, build up dependable or reliable infrastructure in the form of transportation systems – air, land and sea – as well as reliable energy and water supplies, among others, not forgetting quality social services in the form of good health, education and comfortable welfare systems. However, this was not to be because the pace of development at all fronts has been abysmally slow and below expectation.
SECTORS
The educational sector, for example, has been moving forward and backward, failing to equip the youth with the requisite knowledge and skills needed to address the challenges the nation is facing. It is interesting to note that at a time when the country needed a consolidation of direction towards the achievement of goals in the educational sector, a result-oriented Senior High School (SHS) system, for example, was reversed in 2013 from its original four-year duration to three years to create two streams of SHS graduates at the time to fight over limited places in tertiary/professional institutions.
Again, one crucial problem was accessibility to SHS as well as technical and vocational institutions at the second-cycle level. Fortunately, President Akufo-Addo’s free education policy at this level took effect in September 2017 to reduce the burden on parents and open up accessibility to many students.
Many people, including government officials, tend to focus on only expansion in accessibility to SHS under President Akufo-Addo. What many of them fail to point out is increase accessibility to vocational and technical schools. Indeed, government is rightly encouraging many people not only to focus on grammar education, i.e. SHS, but technical as well as vocational education which have all been made free, alongside the SHS, under President Akufo-Addo.
Besides, the energy sector has been poorly managed over the years, resulting in serious consequences. With good maintenance culture, the Akosombo and Kpong dams together with the Bui dam, Atoabo Gas plant and the Aboadze thermal plant could ensure steady supply of energy. In addition, independent power producers as well as exploitation of new sources of energy, if well executed, could have a more positive impact on the country’s economy.
Unfortunately, what did we see recently or a few years ago under the previous government? We saw unreliable, erratic power supply that came to be known as “dumsor”. Until recently when the situation improved, power generation proved to be inadequate while its distribution was so poorly done that it led to frequent power outages, sometimes leading to destruction of gadgets, burning of homes and offices and even loss of precious lives.
GOODS AND SERVICES
In addition, Ghanaians appear not prepared to produce their own goods and services for the nation, preferring massive importation of goods which has led to the growth of foreign economies rather than that of Ghana. The current government’s Planting For Food and Jobs programme will help to address this problem. Similarly, our value-added exports have dwindled over the years, bringing in far less revenue than expected.
It is the hope of Ghanaians that the One-District, One-Factory programme will be successfully implemented to result in value-added exports. This is important because massive imports have not helped the country.
No outsider will come to Ghana to build this nation for Ghanaians. Yet, many people care less about the future of this country while corruption has become the order of the day. It is a common thing to find political leaders linking up with certain individuals and organisations to dupe the nation in various ways. This behaviour, unwarranted as it is, is what, for example, has led to what may be called the “woyomisation” of the economy of Ghana.
SELF DESTRUCTION
As a young person studying at the University of Ghana for a Bachelor’s Degree some years back, I was introduced to a book titled “How Europe Under-developed Africa” by Walter Rodney. The author sought to put the woes of Africa on the Europeans who cheated Africans through what was perceived to be exploitative trade. While this was true to some extent, it makes Africans not responsible for their own misdeeds. In the same way when we come to Ghana, Ghanaians also cannot escape blame for the sorry state of affairs in the country today, especially after 64 years of political independence.
Our problems relate to poor attitude to work, illegal mining, embezzlement of public funds, humongous corruption, lack of patriotism, poor sanitation, lack of proper planning, etc. In light of all this, is it not right to raise questions on the need for critical self-auditing?
If it is, then the urgent desire and determination to re-think our positions towards a selfless, positive, realistic, and result-oriented transformation, in line with President Akufo-Addo’s vision, is what we need now!!!
All Ghanaians need to agree to this and realise that we need to put our heads and efforts together to rebuild our country now that we have a leader who is genuinely prepared to lead the way to achieve our avowed national aspiration, progress and development.
Contact email/whatsApp address of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
BY DR KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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