Ghana Is Going Backward

John Mahama & Amissah-Arthur

I don't know about you, but honestly I feel and the facts seem to suggest we are going backward to the Stonehenge era as a country, to the days people used lanterns, candles, and probably we will soon need to use stones to make fires and hunt for fire-wood.

How on earth in this era can you run a country on 'no power' for the greater part of day, I believe it will be better not to have power at all than to plan with the supply they provide and be disappointed. When you do not have something you adjust to live without it, but how can you adjust when you are not sure it is going to end or its not coming at all. You spend your time hoping and praying instead of creating strategies to fight the deficiency.

Thus the whole country is becoming one big church, instead of developing we are always hoping and praying for a savior because unfortunately our leaders are more of a curse than a blessing.

Honestly I will rather not call them leaders, because the modern definition of leaders has a positive connotation attached to it, which cannot be said for the 'leaders' in Ghana. So let me just call them scavengers, honestly they are more that than anything else in my view, trying to amass wealth and cling to power no matter the cost and implication of their action or inaction and being dictated to, show me a leader and I will show you his vision, show me leader and I will show you integrity and honesty, show me a leader and I will show you leader and not a follower.

Have any of them scavengers bothered to calculate the real cost of the energy crisis facing the country? Have they bothered to put a figure on the jobs lost, opportunities missed, the production houses lost, the cost of running business on generators, the tax lost, the lives lost, just to mention a few? Why are we selling energy to other countries when we are destroying our local industries because of lack of decisive leadership? Are these scavengers even able assume the implications of their actions and inactions, it's a big NO.

I honestly believe if the scavengers know the real cost of their quick-fix schemes in the energy sector they might just try and provide more permanent solutions.

No country will develop if it does not have energy, not country will grow it its energy is manage like Ghana's. Fortunately there are load of examples for the need for energy to keep a country developing, but I guess the scavengers cannot even realize the lessons.

All developed countries and serious minded developing countries and the BRICKS have energy sufficiency, have constant power and have access to power.

How can you manufacture cheaply when you are running on generators, who will invest in modern technology when the Electricity Corporation of Ghana will intentionally destroy your machine and investment?

How can we develop when no one is taken to book, sued for the materials, goods, and services lost because of the lack of power?

We should not be deceived by the fact that we see the most modern cars of cars on our roads it means we are developing, we should not let the scavengers deceive us by using that funny term 'middle-income' status to mean we are developing, because the quality of our lives in Ghana is dwindling at a faster rate.

Look at the filth all around, look at the level of indiscipline all over, look at the number of street children and beggars on the roads; does this describe a middle income country, well not in my book? Especially when we have a country where the law breakers now believe it is their right to break the law, in terms of 'galamsey', hawkers on our streets and indiscriminate building and mounting of bill-boards.

Ghana's problems are not rocket-science problems; they are existing because we do not have leaders. We need people who are not lead by voters and their votes, but leaders who are ready to take the hard and unpopular decisions.

Put a real leader in place and Ghana will be a real middle income country. Until we have leaders, we will continue going backward, until we begin to question the scavengers, until we begin to be analytical and vote on issues and not blindly on party lines Ghana will continue to retrogress.

Right now we do not have energy, soon the wise and bright manpower will start leaving the shores of this dark Country because not one wants to live in hell, seriously Ghana is becoming a hell to leave in.

Until we get a leader who is a visionary and one who is not a scavenger, but loves Ghana, and is ready to take the hard decisions we will keep going deeper into the darker ages, and I pray the darkness does not encourage and plotters and planers, because the scavengers are creating the environment for such plotter to have field day and giving them a reason to operate.

God bless Ghana