Saturday,
July 26, 2014
Folks, I find it difficult to
understand why some government officials cannot come to terms with the reality
in front of them to do decent politics and win the goodwill of the people.
Just last Thursday, we all saw
and heard how Ghanaian workers (organized labour) took to the streets, joined
by many segments of the population (private businessmen and women, commercial
drivers, and just any group of identifiable elements) to complain bitterly
about the worsening economic situation in the country because of the
government's inability to solve problems while at the same time raising taxes
and implementing policies leading to the high rate of utility services,
petroleum products, foodstuffs, and many other vitals.
We all sympathized with the
plight of the demonstrators, even if we didn't see street demonstrations as the
panacea to the very problems that they were complaining about and doing acts to
lower productivity instead.
Vice President Kwesi B.
Amissah-Arthur is the Chairman of the government's Economic Management Team and
cannot claim not to know that Ghanaians are extremely angry at the dire
circumstances in which the government's inability to solve problems has placed
them. Even as I write, some sections of organized labour are on strike (UTAG/POTAG,
nurses, etc.) and others (Ghana Exporters and Importers Association) are
threatening to go on demonstration next week to add their voices to what has
already inundated public discourse to the government's disadvantage.
Yet, here he comes to say what we
least expected to hear: the government has reduced poverty. Where? When? How?
And why are the people so angry?
Here is what has come from the
Vice President: “Many reforms and investments made by the government have
helped beat down poverty, Ghana’s Vice President has said, adding that
innovative policies and programmes could help reduce inequalities in the
country. According to him, Ghana’s middle-income status ‘vindicates the
accumulation of growth strategies that have been adopted in this country since
independence.’
“Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, however,
said ‘a lot still remains to be done.’ He was addressing senior public service
officers at a three-day conference, which is focusing on renewing the face of
the public service for high performance, in the Ashanti regional capital,
Kumasi.” (See:
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=318617)
MY COMMENTS
To say that I am highly
disappointed in this utterance from the Vice President is an under-statement.
He should have known better not to rub salt into our wounds at this time. Even
if the government has implemented policies to reduce poverty, the reality on
the ground doesn't warrant this bold or rather flippant statement at this time.
I don't want to believe that the
Vice President is relying on mere statistics gathered by politically interested
elements seeking to please officialdom about how much they can gather from
sources only known to them. Without meaning to be saucy, I have just one big
question for the Vice President. Can he tell us just one of those “innovative
policies and programmes” implemented by the government that has reduced poverty
in the country?
Folks, I am all for honesty in governance
and don't think that the Vice President has been honest to himself, the
government, and the good people of Ghana. To hell with this kind of
foolhardiness in critical times as we are in. Let him come again!!
Even before he comes again, let
me add here that I have known the Vice President since the days of Rawlings,
even before he became the Deputy Secretary for Finance and Economic Planning,
where he saw how governance can be jeopardized by economic policies. The NDC
lost Election 2000, apparently because Ghanaians were dissatisfied with how the
Rawlings government was managing affairs, especially the economy. It's on
record that Rawlings had complained that 500 million Dollars that his government
desperately needed to turn the situation around at the time had been denied it
by the donor community, which was a big blow to his administration.
The Vice President moved out of
the limelight thereafter only to resurface by a positive quirk of circumstance
in the current dispensation. To be fair to him, let me say that he knows his
field as an economist or whatever has earned him high public office; but his
kind of political posturing as is reflected by his claim that the government
has reduced poverty cannot be tolerated.
Again, it needs saying here that
if the government had, indeed, reduced poverty, public disaffection against it
won't have arisen and risen so high as to warrant what we are seeing
day-by-day, especially since the political opponents took the first step to demonstrate against
its manner of handling affairs.
Now, all hell has broken loose
for all manner of people and groups to latch to that campaign of calumny to
undercut it. The truth is that the government is facing serious problems that
should be admitted and public sympathy courted so as to lessen the pressure
being mounted on it.
Hiding behind stale statistics
and anecdotes (as the Vice President has just done) to create the impression
that all is well is not only impolitic but is a betrayal of the voters' trust.
Nothing is working well, even if we take President Mahama's own lamentation
into consideration. He has said that donors aren't forthcoming as expected.
International rating of Ghana's economy has us all worrying; and government
officials are quick to admit that the challenges exist. Is it in the midst of
this complication that the government has managed to reduce poverty?
Let's be bold to tell Vice
President Amissah-Arthur and others posturing like him that they are making it
difficult for the government to be accepted on its own terms. They don't seem
to know how to court public sympathy and will have to be touched to learn how
to do so. Let the government functionaries tell the people the truth so they
can be set free even as they attempt freeing the citizens from the clutches of
poverty. Too much political posturing really damages government’s interests;
and Ghana loses out!
I shall return…
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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