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02.03.2014 Feature Article

Poverty In The Midst Of Plenty

Poverty In The Midst Of Plenty
02.03.2014 LISTEN

We always sing our National Anthem with so much pride any time our Black Stars (National Football Team) or any of the Junior National Teams are involved in a tournament. "God Bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong..." We all know what the rest of the words are. God has already blessed our homeland Ghana with so many riches, but i keep asking myself, why is there so much poverty in the midst of plenty?

We have mineral resources such as gold, diamond, manganese, bauxite, timber, cocoa and quiet recently the discovery and exploration of Ghana's oil resources which has yielded huge volumes of oil and gas for our blessed country. But i cringe when i see the level of poverty in my dear country despite all these blessings from God. Is it that our leaders have failed us or they simply don't know how to run the affairs of the country?

Why cant we add value to our natural resources but would rather take delight in exporting the raw materials to the western world and also be content with we being touted as "the largest or biggest exporter" of these raw materials? Currently our educational system is facing so many challenges and it seems the political games are being applied to this very important sector of Ghana's development agenda.

Why do we keep on borrowing huge sums of money from foreign financial institutions whenever we need funds for major projects? I some times have this opinion that those at the helm of affairs do not think about those who voted them into power. How much would it cost to build a hospital or a health center in a rural area, not to talk about the building of better educational facilities and the provision of good drinking water? What about those bad roads that lead to the food producing areas? No one seems to care about the poor farmer who goes to his farm every day just to make sure his crops produce better yields only to face a problem of not being able to transport his food produce to the market center at the end of the day.

So, my question is, why are we still poor if God has really and indeed blessed Ghana our homeland? Did i read some where that very soon Ghana would be importing water from Dubai? I hope this is just one of the jokes we create in Ghana. To continue the National Anthem ..... "And make our nation great and strong......." Your comments are welcome.

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