What are Governments for?

I have been asking this question in the last few days, not because I supply an exhaustive answer, but to give vent to my frustration with governments, especially the African and for that matter the Ghanaian kind.

In the last week or so much is being mode of the first 100 days of the Mills' administration in Ghana. To me, 100 days is far too short a period to assess any government. However, if a government sets stall by this criterion, the opportunity should be grabbed to make critical reviews. This opportunity, however, should not be seen as one to score cheap political points but rather it should be one for setting the right priorities whilst the government is still young.

With this premise, I find it highly embarrassing that the President is awarding himself high marks for accomplishments which, in themselves, will not and cannot advance the lot of the Ghanaian one bit. Equally disgraceful is the actions of some individuals seeking to elevate the government far above its station. All that the government has done is set up the constitutionally mandated bodies with which to run the country. It has achieved nothing tangible so far, not that I am expecting them to, in so short a time.

Thus my question: what are governments for?

I am not much bothered about whether or not the President has met the promises made for the first 100 days. Rather, we should be asking whether these promises were relevant to the advancement of Ghana. Apart from the promise to tackle the filth that has engulfed us and the promise to ensure security to life and property, none of the others will impact the life of Ghanaians much even though they are 'nice-to-haves' and will cost the state next to nothing.

To the two above that I think would significantly impact the life of Ghanaians, I will add a third – that of tackling the problem of motor accidents on our roads. I will humbly suggest that nothing much has been set in motion in any of these areas of national life. Merely organising city centre clean-up campaigns cannot be a substitute for a waste management policy.

The government presented its first budget in March and this could have been used to signal its policy priorities with regards to these three areas. Rather the Government saw it fit to reduce taxes on petroleum products, which made no impact on prices, yet they admit would cost the national treasury $50 million in lost revenue. Instead of this populist gesture, I would have known what to spend this money on to make maximum impact.

Not long ago, some section of Ghanaians (especially the then opposition) was lashing the previous government for spending $60 million on a presidential palace. I will ask Ghanaians to evaluate which is better value-for-money: spending $60 million to give the nation a state building or losing $50 million in revenue that did not impact life at all. With the tackling of filth and crime being high on its agenda, imagine what $50 million could have done for the security services in terms of cross-country vehicles, modern crime fighting technology or what this could have done for sanitation in terms of trash cans along the streets, skips at strategic locations in residential areas, cleaners on our street, etc.

Based on these observations, the President should not therefore be patting his back in self-congratulation. Nothing has been signalled yet by the actions of his government. They need to do more in terms of visible implementation steps. We should not just be wishing things; we should be demonstrating how these would be achieved. What is required is action steps not empty rhetoric. Any attempt to spin what has happened in the first 100 days as exceptional performance is laughable and frankly embarrassing. If this is all it takes for Ghanaian governments to be seen as performing then we shall forever remain a third world country retrogressing at an even faster rate.

The conditions in Ghana are untenable and urgent action is required to reverse the trend of things. The scene at our various markets crammed and teeming with humanity (especially women and the young) trying to sell to limited customers should be disturbing to our national leaders. You see women carrying heavy loads on their heads at times with children strapped on their backs. Is this acceptable in the 21st Century? You see young boys and girls, who should be receiving either education or training, trying to earn a living darting between traffic. What sort of future will they have and what effect will it have on the future of the nation? The precious manpower that will drive the nation forward is not being trained and equipped for the future and no one appears to care.

Take a look on our roads. There is gross indiscipline where traffic regulations do not exist. Drivers take short cuts when traffic lights are on red and they can get away with it. Trucks can load to the high heavens at times with defective tyres and yet can go through several police check points without any challenge. These are the behaviours that graduate to motor accidents and the resulting fatalities. What do we get as a cure? Nothing much except pointless commentary and 'wishy washy' pronouncements by politicians that are forgotten as soon as the news leave the headlines to be recycled after the next fatal accident.

Armed robbery is escalating beyond the resources of the police. Yet what do we see as a response? Our politicians and civil servants are obsessed with the latest models of SUVs and do ride in them of all kinds. Yet the police who are tasked with protecting the population at times do not have the very vehicles with which to discharge their duties. If we are serious about solving crime, how come politicians ride in the powerful cars that can dramatically increase the response time of the police whilst the police make do with unreliable cars or in some cases, none at all? I bet within the first 100 days, the government has been able to import new cars for the use of its officials but what in reality has been done to improve the work of the police? Nothing; absolutely nothing!

Our environment is still filthy with dust constantly hanging in the air and open stinking sewers everywhere. We sell and eat food around these, yet what has been done? The President just gleefully proclaims that Rome was not built in a day and then goes on to score himself 80% on performance.

The plight of our farmers is a disgrace to behold. They have seen their income plummet as foreign food imports displace their produce from the markets. I agree with Dr Nduom that the government should use its purchasing power to help the farmers. If there is a directive that all government departments, schools and institutions should only buy Ghanaian farm produce, imagine the immediate lift this will give to say our rice farmers. The conditions in which people live in our villages are an affront to human dignity and pride. Some one should be bleeding in their hearts for these people. This is the only way for visionary leadership to emerge.

Ghanaians deserve better than what is being acclaimed of the Mills' government and we should learn to demand a lot more from our governments. It is no longer tolerable to use the 'abysmal' performance of previous governments as an excuse. We should be expecting our government to:

• Lead and direct collective national effort towards the achievement of clearly defined national goals in the near, medium and long-term;

• Have a vision for the future with meaningful and measurable goals and targets;

• Provide security to life and property and create the environment for society to thrive;

• Take concrete steps to grow and expand the economy by creating jobs by:

• Finding markets for our existing produce;

• Identifying new products;

• Adding value to our primary products; etc. etc.

We live in a nation where everything is politicised so our leaders are overly sensitive to criticism. Stemming from our traditional cultural practices, we are averse to constructively criticise even though this is what will help to shape our country to what we desire. Ghana has developed a culture of sycophancy where new leaders are immediately praised to the high rafters even before they start delivering. This is all done to curry favour with the new masters. You only have to listen to news bulletins to hear the amount of eulogising and adulation that goes on. It is also evident by the number of visits paid to the seat of government on a daily basis to 'pay homage' and to sing praises and make claims of exceptional performance that are far from reality. In a way we get the Ghana we deserve unless we are prepared to constructively criticise.

We cannot achieve much if our aspirations as a nation are very low and our expectation of our leadership is low and less demanding. We should, as a people, study what is going on in other parts of the world that has enabled their societies to progress. We should especially study the Asian countries whose level of development was the same as ours some three decades back but has now soared upwards whilst ours has remained static or in some cases gone backwards. We should be demanding that our leaders lead and offer such vision that has transformed these nations.

We should not accept mediocrity as the norm. We occupy a part of the globe where we have natural resources and have a certain climatic pattern. Are there any special advantages that our particular natural circumstances afford us above all other nations of the earth? Do we have certain plants that can lead to the cure for an incurable disease or do we have certain resources that will produce the next material that will degrade easily? We must unceasingly try to find answers to these and other such questions to transform the lives of our citizenry. We cannot remain a primary producer through the 21st Century as well. We were blighted by colonisation in the 19th and 20th Centuries but surely we should emerge in the 21st. The next generation will not forgive us if we accept the status quo and propose to do nothing about it.

Fellow Ghanaians, we cannot only demand that political leadership perform: we have to offer our best too but our efforts as a people needs direction. I can discern a certain pride of the Ghanaian in Ghana. I was driving to the airport in June 2006 on the evening that Ghana beat the Czech Republic in football's world cup. I saw enough to convince me that all is not lost in Ghana. All that is required is a responsive political leadership that is able to channel their fervour of patriotism into something useful.

Let our governments fulfil this role. Let them resolve to develop every life in Ghana irrespective of where they live or the station of their parents in life. Let them not ignore any talent or brain or skill in the name of politics. We shall not progress in this way. Let us all resolve to make ourselves available to the call of our nation. I do not want to side with any political persuasion: I prefer to side with Ghana. This is the here and now and we cannot afford to wait for another four years to elect a government we perceive to be our choice. It may be too late then. Government should invite everybody to put their shoulder to the wheel; government should devise a strategy and government should lead.

Long Live Ghana! Long Live the Ghanaian!

Dr Frank Ohemeng, Manchester, United Kingdom