Accra, Ghana, June 24, 2018//-Ghanaians are tired of being kept in limbo about economic promises from government which never materialized.
It is important for the government officials to note that, they are put in-charge of the economy to make judicious use of scarce resources to make life better for Ghanaians.
The managers of the economy ought to learn how to cause economic surprises rather than creating unnecessary expectations. When it happens, the government creates a standard that it must meet.
It is rather disheartening and at times annoying when all kinds of promises are made and based on that Ghanaians vote for a political party to form a government, only to turn round to complain that, the problems are too much to tackle.
It must be made clear in the first instance that, if there are no problems to solve in the economy; and that everything works to perfection, there is no need for a political party to come to power. There are problems which you know you can solve better than your competitor that is why you campaign to come to power.
Unnecessary expectations
Unfortunately, political parties in Ghana, create unnecessary expectations which they know they cannot fulfil but they always succeed in throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.
It is important to realize that national investments are big ones, and therefore, it is important to do critical analysis of the economy before coming out of those unrealistic promises. It also points to the fact that, we are not familiar with the Ghanaian Economy. For example, One District, One Factory (1D1F) project is running into the thin air. I am not blaming any political party though, but all political parties, at least those that had the opportunity to be in charge of this economy for the past two decades.
I think as a country, we need a solid development plan. It will do us much good if we form a national council for development plan, I don’t mean those council we form on an ad-hoc manner without a clear – cut vision.
As a country, we need a blueprint of the development of this country for the next 50 years with constitutional backing, so that, irrespective of any party that comes to power, we shall see the continuity of the country’s investments. It is therefore surprising that the National Development Planning Commission’s 40-National Development Plan for Ghana was truncated after the change in government: From John Mahama regime to current Akufo-Addo government.
The Lack of this has brought about vital projects which are abandoned dotted all over the country. Now political parties, especially National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) are competing who can abondone our precious investment the most.
Let us take a statistics of all the country’s investments for the past 20 years and see, how this country’s money has been thrown away. The most unfortunate thing is that, these governments of Ghana, NPP and NDC sought approval from parliament to obtain loan only to waste it. With all due respect, let me sound this way.
Social repercussion
The social repercussion of this behaviour is the untold hardship inflicted on Ghanaians. This means that our economic priorities are not set right. This problem will become a thing of the past if we have, as a country, a national development plan – which looks nationalistic rather than political, to be put in place.
Why Ghana is lagging behind
Our scarce resources would be spent well and we shall have value for money for our projects.The reason why Ghana is lagging behind is that, we do not use the right people with core competencies who can manage this country for us.
We live in a country where when a party wins power, machetes are used to chase political opponents from their offices.
Let us use the right people who can deliver. Winning a war is not in the numbers. We must realized that, whether NPP or NDC or PNC, or PPP, we have common problems which are poverty, disease, unemployment, removing schools under tress, poor road networks , poor education, high cost of energy, low productivity in the agriculture sector,corruption, arm robbery, etc. Let us unite and put Ghana first.
By Francis K. Gamli – Dovene, Facilitator: University of Cape Coast (UCC) CoDE& UEW
