Features
Bawumia, an economic genius
Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia
When Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia made it clear that if given the opportunity to choose between the Ghana Card on the one hand and some road interchanges on the other, he would prefer to choose the Ghana Card, many people, especially those in the opposition, lambasted him and rained insults on him just because they did not understand the essence of his choice.
What Vice President Bawumia meant when he made the choice of the Ghana Card was that the card was a facility or document that could make things easy as far as business transactions between individuals and corporate organisations are concerned. He meant that the document known as the Ghana Card was going to facilitate all transactions and make things easy for socioeconomic development in the country.
Some of the direct benefits of his profound statement and choice are that the Ghana Card would serve as an identity to make it easy for people to register for their health insurance, merge their SSNIT numbers with it, and also help everyone to be easily identified for the purpose of participating in elections in the country at any point in time.
The Ghana Card, which serves as our national ID card, would also serve as an employee identity card on all occasions and help the country to fish out criminals in the country. Again, going for loans from the banks or engaging in any form of business transaction could also be facilitated through the use of our national identity card, otherwise known as the Ghana Card.
If the Ghana Card can be used for all these purposes, among other things, then it stands to reason that all forward-looking citizens of this country ought to understand and embrace it for its socioeconomic values. It takes only a genius like Vice President Dr. Bawumia to understand the essence of our national ID card, the Ghana Card. It is this card that can help promote revenue collection and also promote business transactions in any part of this country for the reconstruction of Ghana’s economy. If this is the case, then it is possible to use the ID card, which is the Ghana Card, to generate enough revenue to rebuild roads, hospitals, schools, road interchanges, and many other good things in the country.
Those who misunderstood the Vice President are not the reading type or lack knowledge of processes that could easily lead to the building of facilities and other good things in the country.
From this, it becomes clear that Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia is a genius whose foresight goes beyond that of his political opponents. Understood in this way, the Vice President is a great economic genius whose contribution to the economic growth of the country is beyond measure.
He should be seen as a great asset that is far better than many of the human commodities we have in this country. His plans and programmes for this country go beyond the immediate benefits that this country can derive from our national growth.
WHO THEN IS A GENIUS?
A person can be described as a genius when he’s knowledgeable, creative, skilled, and understands the present and the future. Such a person also knows what can be done today to push us further or forward for progress in the future. In other words, such a person has foresight as far as economic strides are concerned.
It is good that Vice President Bawumia is the Head of the National Economic Management Team and is collaborating with other hardworking personalities such as the Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, and many others in the country to ensure that Ghana moves on smoothly to achieve the ultimate economic goal for the country. This is what we need to meet all the challenges facing a developing country like Ghana and propel the country from its current economic level to a higher pedestal of economic development.
The world has been facing serious economic challenges as a result of the Russian-Ukraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic. These developments have taught Ghana and many others in the world that we need to take pragmatic measures to strengthen our economy and make it more resilient to economic shocks.
The Akufo-Addo administration has, therefore, reacted positively to this development, making it possible for the country to make strides in the face of global economic challenges.
In spite of the challenges facing the country, the Akufo-Addo administration, ably supported by Vice President Bawumia, the Finance Minister, and the Economic Management Team, is putting up 111 district health facilities across the country. In addition, 307 ambulances have been supplied to all parts of the country, and today, every constituency has at least one ambulance.
Furthermore, drones have also been brought in to supply essential drugs to distant places throughout the country. In addition to all these, free Senior High School, Technical and Vocational Education and Training are also ongoing to ensure that the manpower needs of the country are being met in the right way.
Coming back to Vice President Bawumia as a genius, it should not be forgotten that his role in the economic team is helping to transform the economy of Ghana. Indeed, certain positive measures have been taken to make it possible for the Cedi to gain essential value and appreciation. It should not be forgotten that Vice President Bawumia has announced that the government has decided to use gold instead of the US dollar for the purchase of crude oil into the country. This is working perfectly well, and many fuel-exporting countries have sent representatives into the country to take advantage of this new arrangement.
In connection with this, all those involved in the legal mining of gold in the country are to deposit the gold they gather in rural banks for these banks to deal with the Precious Minerals and Mining Companies (PMMC) for export.
This is an ingenious measure that can come from practical-oriented minds that can overturn the economic challenges facing the country.
Similarly, Dr. Bawumia and his economic team have also succeeded in controlling speculation regarding the value of the US dollar.
What is more, Dr. Bawumia and his team under the direction of President Akufo-Addo have made it clear that, beginning in 2023, our foreign imports will be cut by 40 per cent. Those who want to bring in commodities like imported cooking oil and imported chicken will have to find their own foreign currencies for that purpose but not request dollars from the Bank of Ghana.
These and many other measures taken by Dr. Bawumia and his Economic Management Team under the direction of President Akufo-Addo have helped ease the pressure on the US dollar. This explains why the Cedi is performing wonderfully well and appreciating in value.
For all these reasons, those who are only concerned about empty politics that cannot bring any benefit to the country would have to stop the misdirection of their energy and collaborate with the government to ensure that we are able to achieve our ultimate goal of economic development.
On the basis of this, let each and every Ghanaian support the efforts of the Economic Management Team and also pray that President Akufo-Addo continues to provide the good leadership he has made available for the country so that both the present and future generations will benefit from the current programmes and policies being implemented.
By Dr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Email address/whatsApp number of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
