REFORMATION (1)
“When the PAP government took office in 1959, we set out to have a clean administration. We had deep sense of mission to establish a clean and effective government. We were sickened by the greed, corruption and decadence of many Asian leaders. Fighters for freedom for their oppressed peoples had become plunderers of wealth. Their societies slid backward. Human ingenuity is infinite when translating power and discretion into personal gain. Law and order provide framework for stability and development. So, from the very beginning we gave special attention to the areas where discretionary powers had been exploited for personal gain and sharpened the instruments that could prevent, detect, or deter such practices. It is easy to start off with high moral standards, strong convictions, and determination to beat down corruption. But it is difficult to live up to these good intentions unless the leaders are strong and determined enough to deal with all transgressors, and without exceptions. We cannot afford to forget that public order, personal security, economic and social progress, and prosperity are not the natural order of things, that they depend on ceaseless effort and attention from an honest and effective government that the people must elect”.
–Lee Kuan Yew
The new Akufo Addo NPP administration has been caught in the web. It happened to almost all the political administrations we have had in this country following the post-independence era. The politicians must decide whether to celebrate the nation’s milestone independence or not and if so in what form. Opinions are sharply divided over the issue. The pro-celebrants see a lot of wisdom to celebrate because the country has come very far. The fallacy in their arguments is that they very often compare Ghana to the impoverished countries dotted along the Africa landscape where greedy, corrupt, incompetent and very often dictatorial leadership have consigned those countries and most of their citizens to a dustbin of economic and social hell fire. On the other hand, the anti-celebrants look to the achievements of such other countries like Singapore and Malaysia, countries Ghana started life with, as more worthy standards to compare Ghana with. It is indeed foolhardy to compare yourself to a poor person and then put a smile of contentment on your face. The right thing to do is to learn from the path of the successful in society and try to emulate their good examples.
To the credit of the present political administration, the Akufo Addo NPP administration has managed to find an ingenious way to weather the storm over its decision to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the nation. Even though the final cost of the celebration has not been tallied yet, we can rest assured for one thing. I can feel it in my bones and a great sense of trepidation within me that had the greedy, corrupt, incompetent, criminal John Dramani Mahama NDC administration been in power to conduct the celebrations, the nation would have had to mortgage the entire oil revenue for the next four years to prosecute the celebration.
Let me put it on record. I have always opposed the celebrations of the birth of this nation. I belong to the anti-celebrants simply because according to all the indicators of human development and the standards established in the Strategic Development Goals, Ghana scores very, very low, a failure mark as a matter of fact. But then this is a country at any time somebody dies, posters are printed in honour of the departed person with the tell tale language: “celebration of life well lived” and “gone too soon” whenever somebody dies no matter his or her “Corruption Perception Index” (CPI) score and the age the person clocked.
Let us examine the current position of the country after sixty years of independence. A normal working person after reaching the retiring age of 60 years qualifies for pension which should be enough to keep him or her in a state of well-being at least not too below the life he or she led before retiring. Indeed in some of the advanced countries, people retire early because they enjoy a better standard of living in retirement. For the greater majority of the people of this country, most pensioners who can find job after retirement work harder as “consultants” in retirement than during their normal working lives. In retirement they are afflicted by all the life-long diseases like hypertension, diabetes, visual impairment, glaucoma, general body weakness. The cure to these illnesses does not come cheap. If you do not have grown up children with good compensation packages who are willing to take care of you, then you can be sure that you would be consigned to your early grave.
SSNIT which was established to make provision for the aged, has been so mismanaged and its administration steamed in so much corruption. The money SSNIT is supposed to manage and administer is private one. Yet the law establishing it by the greedy educated bastards gave power over the funds to the government. The Board of Trustees of SSNIT is so skewed in favour of government appointees. The TUC which is supposed to have a representation on the board almost invariably put its own Secretary-General on the board presumably to enable him enjoy all the mouth watering goodies of the position of board membership. So far the overall performance of SSNIT does not bear any witness to the fact that the labour union has a representative serving on the board. The story is no different from other state institutions like COCOBOD with the leadership appointed by the government.
If we cannot find Ghanaians with the needed competences and patriotism to manage SSNIT and other state institutions like COCBOD, what is the guarantee that we can find the right Ghanaians to manage the Jubilee House? We should as a nation agree to put the Jubilee House on the divestiture list and wait for the highest foreign bidder so that the money which goes into the four yearly elections can be used to improve our education, health and infrastructure systems. Period. The situation might appear to be ludicrous were it not so tragic.
Indeed after just four years of the greedy, corrupt, incompetent, criminal John Dramani Mahama NDC administration, the nation is reeling over its debt burden with no visible assets to show and any clear direction as to how our debts can be paid without sympathetic hearing from our creditors. Today Ghana is in a terrible state of ruin and any celebration of 60 years of independency should be viewed as look into a glorious future and not the gloomy past.as a result of the past activities of the parasitic greedy educated elite who have been in charge of the nation’s affairs at all levels and every human endeavour. These greedy bustards of educated elite lived off the fat of the land through non-productive activities dependent on political patronage. They were the wrong kind who made it into leadership positions and held entrusted positions. They saw power for the sake of power and for their own aggrandisment rather than a real understanding of the need to use power to improve the country and the lives of the citizens. They only succeeded in bringing massive misery to majority of people of this country. If you examine the words of Lee Kuan Yew quoted above then they should be all in maximum security prison in the Afram Plains cultivating foodstuffs and rearing cattle for the export market to pay the nation’s debts.
By Kwame Gyasi