Hard Times

'Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears while we all sup sorrow with the poor; There's a song that will linger forever in our ears; Ooooooooh, hard times come again no more. Tis the song, the sign of the weary. Hard times, hard times, come again no more; Many days you have lingered, forever in our ears, Ooooooooh, Hard times come again no more!!!' I couldn't believe how accurately what I remember from maybe 64 years ago, match the real lyrics.

I seem a bit out of touch; because it surprised me my granddaughter spent GH¢100 doing her hair, especially when she quickly added: 'And that is cheap. Trotro from Adenta to Achimota: Adenta to Madina GH¢2.60, Madina to Achimota GH¢3.00; they won't ply Adenta to Achimota,' was also surprising.

Truth, though, is that it has always been hard; hasn't it? That is how come we have had some one dozen coup d'etat attempts, four of them succeeding. Songs of hard times, such as Nana Ampadu's 'Ebi te yie, Ebi so nte yie koraa' as is being sung by congresspeople now, have always preceded coups. Congresspeople have taken full advantage, as they have been doing since May 15, 1981, to rabble-rouse my compatriots that they are the fixers. 'Ghana ayɛ den' (Times are hard in Ghana), as if Ghana has ever been soft when they have been in government.

Sometimes you listen and read issues occupying print space and airtime, you wonder if we aspire to reach anywhere great. GH¢899,000 paid to presidential wife over four years can be the headline for days and then disappears with nothing said about the wife who was selling state scholarships.

Year 2024 must be the year of how not to commit development suicide, to avoid ruptures in governance that result from coup d'etats and social dislocations, as happened in year 2008. No nation grows or develops with the 2008 voting verdict disaster. Therefore, compatriot voter beware in 2024, because it is this same congresspeople who have told themselves 'Having too much is not enough,' in stealing public funds to enrich themselves.

We need the breakthrough 'suffer to gain' time. That requires patience. If we hadn't been impatient on December 31, 1981 and again threepeat combination of December 7, December 28, 2008 and January 2, 2009, we would have been far advanced beyond our current 'hard times.' No human condition is permanently good. What is needed is hope in hard times. I see hope in a lot of what is going on now.

I see considerable fixing the youth are crying for. There'll be relief if efforts would be doubled in completing the 1D1F factories, the massive road works and skill empowering education and economic programmes. There have been 1980s to 90s harder times.

What we all need to do is to work harder, to check the misuse of public funds. We need to quickly convert the 'Ghana nnyɛ dɛ' (Ghana is hard) cry of the youth to 'Aha ayɛ dɛ o; aha ayɛ dɛ o oooo' (Times are good). I am sure many of my compatriots look back now to 2001-2008 and ask themselves how come Kufuor was able to transform the 1980s and 1990s hard times into that of 2001 to 2008 age of prosperity, without oil money.

Save us, economists and statisticians. Please provide the data doing research that is anchored in the exigencies of 1966, 1972, 1979 and 1981. The research should throw light on why the 'mpo a yɛbɛto against wɔn' 2008 voting suicide must not be repeated. Then I expect the communication industry to publicise the results to save the motherland from another backwardly retrogressing rapture.

By saying times have always been hard, I am by no means totally excusing the leaders of today for times being hard. Of course you don't also brush aside the COVID-19 devastation. I am just saying that we should critically examine what has happened before to properly understand what is happening now for purposeful and realistic planning of the future.

It seems in 1966, 1972 and 1979 and especially 1981, we were so impatient to have destroyed whatever little good that was happening only to create worse happenings that stunted our growth and development. That means I am urging serious reflection and introspection now against what has happened before in order not to jeopardise what could be achieved in the immediate, mid-term and long term future.

If hard times are here now, maybe it's because times have always been hard. Or maybe because when we were close to fixing things, we allowed clueless adventurers to disrupt and dislocate in coups and deceptions that were doomed to cause more future hardships.

In our development strategy, I think heavy investment in agricultural production and investment in processing the resulting produce would earn corporate motherland more funds instead of the funds that are directed into private pockets from loans contracted to construct interchanges.

The road to less hardship is how to improve our conditions without heavy borrowing which mortgages the future of the youth. Whatever we borrow should go into opening up job spaces for the youth. Third, we should find effective way of checking stealing from the public purse. Let someone or some group come up with effective asset tracking for public office holders. We should know where our hard earned money is going at all times.

At the moment, I don't see that coming from the alternate (congresspeople). With the nation in their care (God forbid), these three things will never happen. So let our brains come up with strategies to ensure that loans are channelled into agribusiness and agro industries that would provide jobs to create and sustain good times.

Frankly, it's likely times would be hard no matter what. That is why we need patience, a lot of patience to hold on to the good things such as ensuring factories that are being constructed get completed on time; while we seek effective ways to deal with the bad things that create the hard times. In 2024, let's work hard to find an alternative, rather than commit another election suicide.

Congresspeople in government make times hard. Out of government, they talk times are hard. Lest we forget the massive assets, pro-poor programmes and investments they inherited on January 7, 2009: oil in commercial quantity, then highest ever quantity of, and price for, cocoa, highest gold earnings; all that had been squandered by 2016.

By Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh