Does Akufo Addo Sleep?

“They say we are all prospering, doing very well under their economic governance. They tell us that anyone who is able to transfer more than a hundred cedis to his grandmother in the village to buy paracetamol or mosquito spray is rich and should be levied. That’s 12 dollars 55 cents, by today’s exchange rate!"

All jokes aside, the economy is running out of sight and out of control. It does not look like anyone in government knows what to do to arrest our galloping inflation. Apparently, those who know what to do are clustered in the opposition party. They have perfected the art of proffering their solutions by word of mouth on radio to the admiration of the sufferers. Yet, their theories of obfuscation pronounce them as guilty as those they are seeking to supplant.

I have lost count of the number of times petrol prices have hiked in the past few years, whether under the NDC or the NPP. Inflation for the month of May is perching at an indecent 28 percent, with the indicators predicting frightening times ahead. The cedi has never looked so helpless, hapless and miserable.

There is a crisis situation in Ghana. With the government determined to transfer the rising cost of fuel to the consumer and showing no willingness to cushion the impact of these high prices on workers who themselves are reeling from the unprecedented cost of food and utilities, you don’t need to be a prophet of doom to see no light at the end of the tunnel. Our only light is more hardship, more doom and gloom.

But our problem is bigger than the inflation itself. In a national crisis, you would expect the coming together of our best brains in a national effort to either halt or minimize the inflation and chart a path out of the calamity in which we find ourselves.

But to the annoyance of independent minds, this is where our politicians seek to score cheap political points for their parties, as if the inflation on tomatoes has any respect for party colors! While the NPP is seeking to prove (unsuccessfully though) that it has managed the economy well, considering the global market forces working against its policies, the NDC remains resolutely relentless in its brutal condemnation of the NPP’s track record of incompetence in managing the affairs of the economy!

And so here again, a national crisis which requires emergency treatment at the Economic Trauma Unit (ETU) is being unambiguously politicized ─ a recourse to the old strategy of polarization as a weapon of denial and legitimacy.

So what becomes of the masses who bear the brunt of the elephant fight? We look on helplessly in sorrow and woe as our evergreen politicians lecture us on radio and on television on how well we are doing as a nation. They say we are all prospering, doing very well under their economic governance. They tell us anyone who is able to transfer more than a hundred cedis to his grandmother in the village is rich and should be levied. That’s 12 dollars 55 cents, by today’s exchange rate!

With the hurricane of hardship sweeping us helter skelter, coupled with the incorrigibly atrocious levels of unemployment in this country, I dare ask the President whether he is able to catch a good night’s sleep! This is definitely not a good time for an ordinary president. But for a great president, the challenges could be fodder for excellence and achievement.