Features
Proposed IMF bailout exposes unguarded utterances from our political leaders
Politics is the way people living in groups make decisions. It is about making agreements between people so that they can live together in groups such as tribes, cities or countries. In large groups, such as countries, some people may spend a lot of their time making such agreements.
It is very important to care about politics because you should know what is going on around you and also to have a say in things around you. The political decisions people make will affect many lives. Many people see politics as the government and the laws being made and that is true, but in a way it is more complicated. Alexis Mortensen in a write up about the importance of politics said; “We need to care about politics because the decision people make will affect many lives.”
UNGUARDED AND LOOSE POLITICAL STATEMENTS FROM PARTY STALWARTS
Having defined politics and how important it is to society, I am inclined to situate it to Ghana where the political terrain has taken a different dimension which allows the political actors (politicians) to say serious things without weighing their consequences in the future. In their quest to win the mandates of the people, they mount various platforms during their political campaigns, opening their mouths wide and saying all kinds of unguarded statements and loose utterances. They forget that these same utterances once they are in print and electronically recorded can be used against them by their opponents in the future with serious consequences.
They do not end there with these negative utterances when they assume leadership positions and various ministerial and other roles in government. They say worse things they cannot substantiate or defend, thus giving room to opponents to take them on and sometimes accuse and ‘blast them while in office. Some of the notable utterances were, “I shall protect the Public Purse. I am not corrupt and will never be corrupt. I can develop Ghana without borrowing, the money is here. I will transform Ghana in 18 months. I will not operate family and friends’ government. I will fight corruption with the Anas principle. I will make the Korle lagoon and Odor river tourists attraction. I will build a factory in every district. I will give each constituency $1 million every year. I will never go to the IMF for a bailout. I will build 111 hospitals in 18 months. The hikes in fuel prices will be a thing of the past” among others.
NPP TAKEN TO TASK FOR SEEKING HELP FROM IMF
Such is the situation we find ourselves in Ghana at the moment, where the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has been taken to task by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by its flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, following the announcement on Friday, July 1, 2022 that the current government led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has started negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide support for Ghana’s economy.
Before this bombshell was dropped, there had been series of utterances from NPP stalwarts and big shots including the Vice President, Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia and the Finance Minister, Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta within the past few months saying emphatically that the country would not seek assistance from the IMF. In the words of the Finance Minister, “We have committed to not going back to the IMF because the Fund knows we are moving in the right direction. Ghana is committed to managing its debt without assistance from the IMF. We have the resources and the capacity is there. We are not people of short sight”.
ASSIN CENTRAL MP EXPRESSES REGRET FOR IMF ASSISTANCE
The vociferous Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, who once stood against any decision by the government to access the IMF facility and blasted the NDC for orchestrating that unfounded allegation, has quickly made a U-turn following the government’s announcement to engage with the IMF for support to help Ghana build back in the face of the challenges currently confronting the economy saying that he was sad about that statement.
According to him even though the party bigwigs had earlier told him after the announcement on Friday, July 1, 2022 not to comment on the issue, he could not keep quiet. Hear him. “IMF? What are we going to say again? Somebody texted me, don’t say anything about the IMF. Me, I shouldn’t say anything about IMF? I will say it. He said the NDC went to the IMF for a bailout because the government mismanaged the economy. Therefore, if the NPP government is also going to the IMF for support, it is just like handing over power to NDC without a contest, straight away.”
“Because of the noise we made, I chew my words back when I said the NDC went to IMF because of mismanagement of the economy. So if NPP is also going to the IMF, what am I going to say now? So breaking the eight(using Election 2024 NPP campaign message) is going to be tough,” he said.
NDC LEADERS COMMENT ON IMF INITIATIVE BY NPP
Leading members of the opposition NDC have been talking after the announcement was made on Friday, July 1, 2022. Former President John Mahama has welcomed the decision to go to the IMF and believes that it is a step in the right direction. He however, feels that things would have been better if the government had taken bold decision earlier. However, the current government says former President Mahama was not bedeviled with any form of crisis to resort to the IMF to fix the country’s economy and, therefore does not have the moral right to criticise them.
The government still maintains that although it has transformed the economy, it was hit by a pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war that has affected the economy.
Most Ghanaians are of the school of thought that the downward trend of the economy persisted long before the Russia-Ukraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic which the government was unable to solve and, therefore laying the problem at the doorsteps of those challenges is inaccurate.
FACTORS THAT LED TO GOING TO IMF
Three years after exiting the IMF programme we are being compelled to head back for assistance. Indeed, Ghanaians in recent months have been feeling the pinch of record inflation and the impact of the war somehow amidst the cut in government spending to avoid a full-blown debt crisis.
According to statistics. Ghana’s economy grew by 3.3% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the same period in 2021 and inflation surged to a record of 26.6 per cent in May. The country is also grappling with the high debt and a depreciating currency, the cedi. A controversial tax on electronic transactions (E-Levy) approved in April and presented as a solution to the economic challenges has also not generated the expected revenues.
Our economists are saying that going to the IMF is not a panacea to our economic problems because we will be compelled to adjust our economic policies to overcome the problems that led the country to seek financial aid. These policy adjustments are conditions for IMF loans and serve to ensure that the country will be able to repay the IMF.
GOING FOR IMF ASSISTANCE IS NON-NEGOTIABLE
It is a fact that the situation we are in now with the cost of living constantly soaring high as a result of the high inflation and the depreciation of the cedi to the dollar, there is clearly nothing we can do than to go for a bailout from the IMF. We should be ready to bite the bullet by accepting and coping with the high restrictions and conditions attached to the facility to help us out of this economic mess.
It is the hope of Ghanaians that the government will as much as possible take into consideration the high cost of living and the sufferings among the people so that in their negotiations with the IMF for the facility, they will not accept unilaterally, harsh conditions that will further worsen the plight of the people and impoverish them.
PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE LIVES OF GHANAIANS
It is indeed important for our leaders not to play politics with our way of living because it will go a long way to endanger the lives of the people. Governance is about the collective responsibility and not a preserve of a particular group. Therefore, if people outside the corridor of power, especially renowned and high profile economists have ideas that can move our dear country out of the mess, there is the need for governments to tolerate them irrespective of party affiliations. We are in the boat together and when it sinks we will perish together. We are lucky that we have two main political parties-NPP, NDC, unlike other jurisdictions across the world where they have splinter parties in parliament and, therefore we need to make a judicious use of the two main caucuses to salvage the downward trend of our economy and bring it back to life.
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By Charles Neequaye
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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