Ah, So ‘Madness’ Is Our Problem?

K1: Koo, do you know what Ghana’s real problem is?

K2: Now you’re asking me?

• What’s wrong with my asking you now?
• What’s wrong is that you’ve watched unconcerned whilst I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to figure out why Ghanaians behave in certain ways…..
• You mean behaviour like that of the SSNIT executives who ordered computer software for 72 million dollars when they could have got the same thing for $3 million?
• How did you know I would use that as an example?
• I know the next one you will cite is the company with different subsidiaries who hide their different identities but all of which reside in the same company’s stables, and which use their different names to bid for the same Government contracts….
• Thus making it appear as if the government contracts were awarded after “competitive” bids had been received and assessed….
• Whereas, in fact, the bids were single-sourced, but cleverly disguised to make it appear as if they were from different companies?
• Koo, where do they get these ingenious ideas from? A man sits in his office and says I’ll create seven companies. And they will all bid for the same contracts. But only the minister or chef executive who will share the proceeds with me will know the true identity of the horses in diversified livery that will come out of different stables?
• Charlie, you’ve grasped it! I say, if these people have such a rich imagination, why don’t they write novels?
• Ho! Can you make a living in Ghana by writing novels? The people who have money aren’t interested in reading novels and those who love reading novels don’t have money….
• So all the imagination goes into inventing
  schemes for making money?
• Yes – even the president of the country knows about a scam called sakawa!
• Amazing, isn’t it? The trouble is that the people who use their imagination to make money all vie for the same money….
• Money that comes out of the taxes paid by their fellow citizens….
• When you buy anything from a supermarket, you pay tax on it, thanks to the cleverness of the wizards in the Ministry of Finance who comb the shops and markets to spot items that are not already taxed, in order to include them in the next budget?
• Yet those same wizards could sit down and watch Woyome take home unearned income of 52 million cedis and not be able to prevent an Attorney-General from enabling such a payment to be made…
• Or the “Comptroller-General…
• What about the Accountant-General?
• Or the Bank of Ghana that accepted the cheque?
• People grab money with BOTH their hands, like starving people who have suddenly got their hands for real on the enormous quantities of food they have been eating in their dreams for months….

– I like the idea of “eating with both hands!” Good metaphor that…

• Thank you!…..
• So what makes people do that kind of thing, I ask you?
• Do I have the answer!
• Do you?
• I do!
• Well, then out with it?
• It will make you laugh till you – see o!-tafrakyer! – piss yourself o! Don’t say I didn’t warn you o!
• Out with it!
• Okay, here goes! (He pulls newspaper cutting out of his pocket and reads “4 million Ghanaians are currently mad – Mental Health Authority…”
• 4 million?
• 4 million! But don’t you drink the soup whilst I am pounding the fufu! May I continue? ….“The Ghana Mental Health Authority says one in every four Ghanaians is mad….It has emerged that close to four million Ghanaians [have been suffering] from mental health challenges in recent times, the Ghana Mental Health Authority has revealed…..The deputy chief executive officer of the Authority .. stated that one in every four Ghanaian currently suffers mild to severe mental disorders…..Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of an NGO called Friends of Mental Health, Dr Caroline Amissah revealed that these mental issues range from depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia with depression, among others.

“This worrying report comes on the backdrop of how the Government [fails] to place enough budget on issues of mental health…Last year for instance, the government did not release any funds for mental health services, while this year, the government has not provided any drugs, although GH¢500,000 had been released for the various mental health facilities,” Dr Amissah revealed. Mental health in Ghana remains one of the most troubling health concerns in the country with the only psychiatric hospital in the city of Accra said to have run out of logistics and medical staff.

“In the capital city of Accra for example, health officials at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital have … threatened to lay down their tools, following the failure of the Government to prioritise the issue of mental health.

(To be continued)
By Cameron Duodu