Many strange things are happening in our public space that calls for swift action, but the people are left in quandary.
It is as if things are normal with us. The power sector is bleeding with a section of the public extending a plea to the government to act. While the situation is getting to a head, duty bearers at the Ministry of Energy, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) think we are in normal times. As the drama unfolds before our very eyes, the Presidency is unable to convince the people with the everyday rhetoric that, “dumsor will not return under my watch.”
The time has come for us as a nation and government to rethink our attitude to national installations such as our railway tracks, hydro power dams, thermal plants and substations. Our “I don’t carism attitude” to everything in the name of participatory democracy is not in our collective welfare.
We are increasingly worried about the attitude of public servants to the needs of the people in recent years.
These officials who must serve the people rather lord it over them. We have moved beyond the days where civil servants considered it a big honour just to serve the people.
Today, the objective for employment in the public service is personal comfort to the detriment of the public interest. Those who care can visit the vicinities of the ministries and other public institutions at about 3pm during working hours and the offices would be ghost “towns.”
The people become helpless in the face of direction from the centre at all levels. Many years ago, the then Ghana Railways Corporation called something “shunting”, and that simply assisted the engineers to undertake daily inspection of the tracks in line with safety regulations. Some of the workers did this exercise on foot when the “train car” was not available.
We urge that the government direct a return of the country to the time-tested values of hard work, discipline, integrity and the fear of God. If every Ghanaian returns to these values, there would be no need to suspect sabotage of the government’s policies and programmes as even opposition elements would lend a supportive hand to every national cause. The equalisation gimmick will end and thus governance would not be about who started what project. This will guarantee continuity in change.
Today quite refreshingly, our democracy has given voices to people to develop verbal diarrhoea and they talk by heart. Listen to Alan. One wonders whether what he says these days conforms with logical reasoning. He is questioning the records of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), claiming the party is making noise. Alan tell us your records and be sincere to also tell us on which platform you attained those records if any. Maybe Alan has some records he made under the aegis of the Butterfly Movement or the revolutionary movement.
From where we sit, Alan is a political dinosaur whose political career would come to an end in December. If really Alan wants to be a third force will he form alliance with Abu Sakara who in 2012 garnered 20,000 votes nationwide on the ticket of the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
Our elders say if you are falling you don’t clutch at a straw or in your weak moment you don’t marry an old woman and create problems for the family because both of you are candidates for funerals. This so-called lame third force should not be the headache for our duopoly. This year’s election platform has moved away from the issues to some wild imaginations on the minds of the people.
So far nothing concrete is on the ground to challenge the policies of President Akufo-Addo and by extension Vice President Bawumia. The arrival of a train called DMU train is causing sleepless nights for John Mahama and his apparatchiks. Obviously there is very little to link the driver who blocked the Tema to Mpakadan railroad to the NDC, the mindset of the driver can be akin to the destructive and negative tendencies of most members of the Umbrella Family.
Since this beautiful train arrived from Poland coupled with efforts to put it to use, certain elements by their pronouncements do not feel at ease. Even the mention of DMU train sends shock waves through their spine as the name rhyme with the visionary man leading the NPP crusade to break the eight. Thus the strategy of the NDC now is to turn all positive policies of the NPP into negative ones so that they can have opportunity to say that the NPP government has no achievements to show the people.