Epistle to The 110 Ministers Under President Akuffo-Addo’s Regime

Dear honorable men and women,

I am beseeching Allah to bestow on you long life, good health and wisdom and nothing but wisdom to continue with the unflinching works you are serving mother Ghana with, Ami. I believe you may have had quite some hectic days over the times aftermath the ordinary Ghanaian rallied tirelessly for you. They missed the precious moment of being with their lovely family and were in your motorcade on several campaign trips as they stewarded the seats you have occupied today, and you are respectfully on the papal seat. I wish you a warm break and may you all resume from the recess with much enthusiasm and vision to paddle Ghana from the grips of 21^st century colonization.

Now that you are away from the tedious work you are known doing in the August house and your various constituencies, we pray this tract locate you in times of ecstasy and leisure for you to honor it with a deep contemplation. From the past years I have read public grievances in a form of 'open letters' which were written by citizens to protest, but it has always been addressed to the incumbent President and to some extent I felt it was a good methodology. In Ga it is said that “yitso taa shi ni kanto abu fai”, to wit; the knee does not wear a cap at the presence of the head], it is allegorical, indeed! However, to some extent also I feel we could use another method as a yardstick to provide immunity for the various Presidents we have had at the times because most of our problems stem from your outlook as Ministers.

Pew Research Center has revealed a very shocking and horrendous report due to the wobbling nature of your regime, probably. It has depicted the preparedness of the people [citizens] of Ghana you preside over to get themselves ferried to the land of the Caucasians if they have all what it takes. The report mentioned other African States but how unearth must citizens of Ghana top this statistic with a whopping 75% as they unambiguously said that they are tired of Ghana and are eager to travel to Europe? I am very sure that if you carry out a similar survey in your various constituencies the responses would be staggering and unfathomable.

In this letter, I want you to consider the piercing constraints which have lubricated the citizenry to not forestall in catapulting their youthful exuberance to the white man's land. When you were being sworn into office and while looking at your colossal number; we argued that Nigeria has 36 ministers with 186 million populations, United States of America is populated by 325.7 million [2017] and China's population is 1.279 billion [2016] with only 21 ministers, that said, the small population of Ghana which is less than 30 million is administered by 110 ministers! It is clear that your numbers are over-the-bar, yet the compatriots trusted in the President after he had said that Ghana has been raped in a cold blood by the erstwhile administration so he needs the numbers to work with. That is why it makes so much sense to believe that you people have no cogent excuse to fail us than to perform and achieve the vision of the President in a tooth and nail course. There are popular adages which say that to “whom much is given much is expected as well as nothing ventured nothing gained”.

Thus President Nana Akuffo-Addo has surrogated you all to be his image wherever you are or may be, and for that matter you were positioned at vantage points in the various ministries for a purpose. Whether you have failed us or not, consider the following and appraise yourselves accordingly, even if you could buttress your side of the story, be mindful that your subjects are ready to oust themselves to other lands whereas the citizens there are not ready to migrate to your jurisdiction.

The ordinary citizens of Ghana have been informed that in the financial warehouse of the economy there are three more monks holding that same office, and believably that is a good omen. Yet the compatriots are eager to expel themselves from Ghana because of virulent and unfairly treatments tailored to the ordinary citizen. Supposing we dare to contract a loan from any of the then defunct Banks to visualize our entrepreneurial dreams, probably we may be struck with a gargantuan interest rate which would exacerbate our toil, but at the same time more than millions of Ghana cedi are still in the hands of the selected few! Appallingly, the financial monks have reckoned the minimum wage rate as 10.62 pesewas and that is not sad but sad is when after a blistering sunny day of strenuous work one's employer could comfortably pay him that meagre. And if we compare it to the United Kingdom's minimum wage rate which is 7.6 euros per hour we feel the anguish of the turbulent regime of the 110 Ministers! Our basic principle of thinking is that if we are to do this same job out there and if we are paid $10 for an hour, it means that we may be earning close to $240 on daily basis, and monthly income of $7440, convertible of 37200 cedi, which is more than your [Ministers] monthly salary with all side dishes added. Now compare it with the monthly pittance of a Nation Builder, I feel ashamed to give that figure because of how information travels fast on the network cable so that President Donald Trump would not be truculent with his 'shithole' message to the African continent again!

We are looking at the broader picture of the poor farmer at Zabzugu who might lose government's subvention to boost the acquisition of farm implements he needed on his farmland or the hawker on the streets of Accra who may end up trashing his transient life owing to the acts of some self-centered individuals! The question is why must not the compatriots of Ghana flee to the western world, please tell us? The issue is woefully despicable and self-inflicting looking at the report of the 'Trends of Poverty and Inequality' recently which centered on the 2017 population projections. It revealed that a total of 6.8 million people were captured as poor to the less privilege of not capable of spending 4.82 cedi which is again far below the minimum wage and not greater than $1! In the furtherance of the statistics, it was also made known that 2.69 cedi cannot be spent on food by 2.4 million Ghanaian if they are to put all their properties together! Have you seen the reason why the current economic turmoil justifies the travel?

Education and corruption should not interoperate but it beseems that in this contemporary times is been synchronized. We are scared to go to school nowadays and thus the rationality for not addressing it to the Presidents is that sometimes they are blamed entirely for the crimes that most of you have perpetuated.

I have not seen any President who has been involved directly in any scandal unlike how we oftentimes hear that their Minsters are slacking and at the end of the day all vituperation are subjected to them. The public would crave for his Minister's head but he will not or may do it pliably as the saying goes that “a mosquito that sucks blood from the testicles receives the softest slap”. It means that most of you are behind the failure of Governments of our time because their missions are orchestrated by you! In the same vein, the masses are whining for employment but the reverse keeps galloping as time passes beyond man's perspective. Employment in this country has been the protocol first and competence, and for this reason it has changed from 'whom you know to who knows you'. The ordinary Ghanaian who perchance has no network is sidelined.

The compatriots are yearning for the day in which we would wake up and just in 2 hours' time we could transverse from Accra to Kumasi and from North to Accra without any shortfalls. We can just enroll at University of Development Studies [UDS] instead of always University of Ghana or Accra Technical University and vice versa if you consider meeting the train roadmap. Those at the south would stop classing themselves superior to the inhabitants of the North after this project is brought to fruition since Accra has become Ghana and Ghana is become Accra. Our pregnant women keep getting miscarriages because we are financially challenged to afford for a private car to convey them to the hospital at the right time relatively to those cruising in the land cruisers and V8s could have magnificently done it. So if our roads are to be prioritized and constructed well, it is not going to enhance only safe delivery but would increase productivity in all we do. Do you know that just here in Accra, from Kasoa to Accra central in the day could take not more than 4 hours for us to get to job albeit if we had woken up at 4am? Auntie Adiza who resides at the Upper West could also transport her produce fleetingly and safer to Accra without it getting spoilt on the road and her estimated income would never dwindle or swindle by thieves? Remember also that Accra and Kumasi being over populated could be speedily pruned if our transportation system is good and working effectively and efficiently. Nobody would force himself at these two zones because if a doctor or a teacher is posted to Navrongo, he knows that with the modern train system he could go and come back in an hours' time. It will also curtail the issues revolving around the extinction of our villages because urbanization would be exterminated with time.

Some of you are not residing in the enclave where your dominion lies but are in Accra and would rather visit those environs monthly, quarterly or yearly. You may have your own intents for doing so, however, I believe that even if your constituency is far away and it might take 10 hours to get there on daily basis, please do engage your subjects on other means to ensure that whatever task they have put you to you are living up to that mandate. One of the reasons that we want to leave the coast of Africa to Europe is that we are yet to understand why an employed citizen is made to pay exorbitant utilities with the less that he has accrued from slavery? At the glance of the incentives at your disposal it leaves us traumatized and paralyzed.

There is no need to accentuate your proclivity of reading the tales of Yaw Asantewaa prior being a Minister. I know you know she was not self-centered; she was a freedom fighter! Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the rest of the Big-Six were selfless individuals whose sweats had made where you are seated comfortable, how have yours being like? We have not developed the muscles of 'Kandahar Boys' yet, that is why we have not throng the various National institutions to relief the bosses of their job, but what I could say is that we are praying to do it intelligently, at the time when the young generation would be doughty and our numbers too had increasingly been 100%, we shall vamoose Ghana for you and your family alone, perhaps your supremacy would rule over them, if that is what you desire!

Considering your numbers which have become a taboo for it to be trimmed with the mercies of President Nana Akuffo-Addo, we are imploring you all to ensure that the very respective portfolios which had been wholesomely conferred on you would help us address all the predicaments of the economy. If you are the Education Minister and at the end of your tenure our literacy rate as a country hikes and Teachers do not have targets met, you must bow your head in shame! The Minister for Employment, if his tenure ends and still the unemployment rate remains dwindling, he must know that he has bled the public purse for a work not done! The roads which link the cities to the remote places, if all are not averagely interconnected, whosoever duty it is has done Ghana no good! Whichever position is being entrusted to you, you ought to be competent in that field for Ghana to survive. This time round is not that the Slave Masters are coming to beguile us with mirror and other worthless items, but we are going to make ourselves useful to them free of charge! After all, you would be touted as the disservice public officials to the economy of Ghana if we fail.

Remember that Ghana is for the entire people of Ghana. You are where you are today to productively enhance the various steps which have been embarked upon in salvaging the cantankerous situations that are troubling Ghana. If you cannot do this for us, then be weary that on the day of accountability you shall be questioned about the position that was given to you and how well you used your 'honorability'!

Ben Carson has opened our eyes with this: “We have been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. But at some point, maybe we would wake up and recognize that it was politicians who created our problems”.

The founders Day celebration must make you thinking deeply!

We are just sad!
© Abdur Rahman Odoi Anum Pobee
[rahmanislam500@Gmail.Com]