Better be reasonable and understand why this current economic hardship in Ghana

Ghana, my beloved country of birth, is currently in a serious economic downturn. However, the current unbearable economic situation it is plunged into is not unique to her, but a worldwide phenomenon.

I had already placed online some articles elucidating the reasons why Ghana is faced with an untold economic hardship that has compelled many a Ghanaian to talk in condemnation of the president and his Finance Minister.

For some new information that is worth the Ghanaian public attention, I will be compelled to revisit or reiterate some of the reasons why Ghanaians are encountering high inflation with high prices of goods and services.

The current economic situation that has set all tongues wagging has come about as a result of;

1. The implementation of the visionary flagship policies and programmes by His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, thus,

a) The free Senior High School (HS) education

b) Planting for Food and Jobs

c) The Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) programme (is a government initiative to address graduate unemployment to solve social problems)

d) One District One Factory

e) One Village One Dam

f) Year of Roads (constructing better-serving and long-lasting asphalt roads), etc.

g) Agenda 111 (providing each district of the remaining 111 districts with a district or municipal government hospital)

2. Fighting, although unsuccessfully, the ramifying devastating small scale and illegal surface and alluvial mining (galamsey). The havoc the galamsey is wreaking on the nation’s water bodies, forests, arable/fertile lands, cocoa and food crop farms, etc., is unprecedented and eye-watering (painful or extremely unpleasant)

a) Costing Ghana Water Corporation unnecessarily more money to treat river water for public consumption because of the extensive damage done to the rivers (waters) by the galamsey activities.

3. Purposeful acts of sabotage by some political parties on intent to cause public disaffection for the president and his ruling NPP government in order to get the public to vote them out of power.

a) Arsons

b) Kidnappings

c) Murders

d) Constantly telling lies about the president and his party to get the public hardened against him and his government. This makes the people become uncooperative with the government, begin to hoard their goods to create artificial shortage with attendant high prices of goods hence high cost of living.

4. Large size of government appointees for a country without much money

a) Paying too many officials for almost doing nothing

b) Duplication of work. Why should some ministries have more than one deputy minister? It does not make sense to have two or three deputy ministers for a ministry. What a wastage of money?

5. The deadly Covid-19 pandemic

a) Money spent on purchasing protective kits, vaccines and quarantining visiting Covid-19-affected persons

b) Expenses made on giving some people free food, free water and free electricity

c) Shutting down businesses to avoid the spread of the lethal infectious Covid-19 virus, etc.

6. The role of the pastors and prophets, thus, churches.

a) Pastors encouraging their members to attend church services almost 24/7. This leads to loss of productive man-hours

b) Church congregations erroneously made to believe that prayer answers all problems so praying and fasting will garner them their heart desires, making them become actually lazy and unproductive towards nation building and development.

7. Many people not paying taxes in Ghana.

a) No effective ways of collecting taxes. The tax net does not catch many people. Ghanaians by nature hate paying taxes but expect more from the government. Nations are not built with citizens being wannabe freebies receivers.

8. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine

a) Blocking gas needed for the production of electricity in Europe hence the prices of goods and services going higher up with knock-on effect on countries like Ghana, Nigeria, etc.

b) The 10 largest shipping companies forming an alliance and then increasing their freight charge by 1,000% as officially asserted by American President Joe Biden. The cost is passed on to the worldwide consumers without Ghana being an exception.

9. Official corruption of embezzlement of public funds and state assets.

10. Ghanaians’ cultivation for foreign taste. Ghanaians love consuming more foreign goods than their locally-manufactured goods hence always chasing the limited dollar or foreign currency to enable them import such goods into the country. By the demand and supply theory or curve, when demand exceeds supply, the price becomes higher. Therefore, there is no doubt that dollar has become more expensive in Ghana to ultimately culminate in the higher selling prices of imported goods into the country. If we curtail our taste for foreign goods, it will be well with us as a nation and a people.

11. International sabotage of Ghana by certain world powers as explained in the attached video.

a) Africa by evidence coming out from certain concerned and knowledgeable white and black persons does confirm that the powerful nations in the world will want to have Africa remain poor all the time so they can continue to exploit us. Therefore, visionary leader Nana Akufo-Addo declaring his policy of “Ghana Beyond Aid” will not be taken kindly to by those powerful countries.

b) Ghana trying to add value to her raw materials through processing before export via the 1D1F will not be a welcome idea to the powerful nations that wish us poor.

Point numbers 5, 8 and 11, are heavily weighing against Ghana without us able to do much about them. They form what is called external shocks. Points 5 and 8 have a worldwide dimension.

Interested public readers had better revisit my already published articles on why Ghana is not in the ongoing economic crisis alone, if they really want to be fair to themselves and to President Nana Akufo-Addo and his NPP government.

I am feeling sleepy so I have resolved not to explain the raised points in detail. Any fair-minded Ghanaian will have understood me by the time they finish reading this publication.

Rockson Adofo

Sunday, 20 November 2022