On the Occasion of Republic Day Celebration

1^st July 2023 - Today marks the 63^rd anniversary of Ghana's Republican status. The Social Justice Movement of Ghana (SJMG) marks the day with mixed feelings. There is massive poverty throughout the country compounded bythe extremely high cost of living. There is also the destruction of our environment, especially the water bodies through reckless methods adopted in artisanal gold mining. These are just a few of the reasons which make the celebration of Republic Day as envisaged by Nkrumah a difficult one. Ghana is far from being a master of its own destiny.

Despite all the odds and the counterfeit democracy being demonstrated by the ruling class over the years with the support of Imperialism; it is this day that gives Ghana the sense of identity and hope. The Republic Day was the day that Ghana formally broke the chain making the country subservient to her Majesty’s Government— the British. It was a memorable day full of hope and aspiration. It also marked the beginning of a new economic path aimed at winning economic independence for Ghana through carefully curated industrialisation strategies under the democratically elected Convention People's Party( CPP) government led by Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

However, the treacherous and ill-conceived coup d’état of 24^th February 1966, organised by the ultra-right-wing elites with the full backing of the imperialists, truncated Ghana's path towards economic independence and self-reliance. Once again, the coup d’état aborted Ghana's attempts to delink herself from colonial domination. The forces of imperialism were too powerful for the nascent nation Ghana at the time.

During the Nkrumah era, bold steps including the setting up import/export substitution industries, free and compulsory basic education, expansion of social and health care facilitiesamong others were meticulously implemented with the sole purpose of bringing relief to Ghanaians. If Nkrumah's government and policies were allowed to continue, Ghana would have been transformed into an industrialised nation comparable to Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and Brazil. That could have provided Ghanaians with the needed goods and services including solving the hydra-headed employment conundrum facing the country today. The industrialisation process was a well thought out attempt to gain fair and needed control over not only the economy, the mineral resources but also over the health and education sectors for the benefit of all Ghanaians.

What is the situation in Ghana today?
The entire economic fabric of the country is currently for sale to the highest bidder willing to pay kickbacks. Tema Oil Refinery is almost gone under a shady deal by those entrusted with power. Ghana's natural resources have been literally sold out cheaply to foreign capitalists and with the state owning almost insignificant shares. That accounts for the lack of viable state-owned industries and enterprises that could have offered job opportunities to the teeming able-bodied and able-minded youth. The deplorable state of Ghana's health care system and its much-touted free National Health Insurance Scheme are nothing but a mockery. The government health facilities across the country lack modern equipment rendering them death traps and ultimately routes to graveyards.

The least said about the education system the better. Public school education is at its all-time low compelling the private-owned schools to fill in the gap. However, the private school education comes with unimaginable cost with only a few people with deep pockets able to afford. This also is a contributing factor to the incremental financial inequality gap between the rich and the poor. This brings to mind the recent mass failure in the licensure exams written by the graduates from the various teacher training institutions who are looking forward to being recruited as professional teachers. This mass failure can easily be attributed to several factors:

• the not well thought through Free Senior High School education policy,
• the lack of adequate funding for basic school education over the years,
• minimal provision of relevant teaching and learning materials to schools across the country,
• ill-fitted classroom facilities,
• poor renumerations for teachers and,
• non-existence of accommodation for teachers.

Since the education system remains colonial in outlook, it makes it difficult to prepare the students adequately for the competitive job market. As a result of that, majority of the youth are unemployed and many are equally underemployed, and some are also into hard drugs as coping mechanism.

The current high cost of living is another challenge facing the majority of Ghanaians. Whilst everything is blamed on Covid-19 and the Ukraine-Russian war (and Ghana’s own declared war against the credit rating agencies), the country is left to slide backwards. Meanwhile, the political space has been hijacked by those who have the money to spend. The two dominant political parties are controlled and influenced by those with the money to buy votes. The struggle for Ghana's democracy that displaced many people and even took the lives of many others has been sold on a silver platter to political investors. As if nature has not finished putting obstacles on Ghana's way, the political establishment and their cronies live in luxury and keep displaying their offensive opulence whilst the taxpayers live in humiliating and avoidable poverty. When they feed fat on the sweat of the working class and they get sick, they go on medical tourism to the European countries or to the US for treatment. Ghana has become a place where they can die and be buried at high-end cemeteries sometimes accompanied by obscene state burials. It is no longer headline news that the children of the ruling class receive their education in the most expensive top-class universities abroad. After graduating, they stay there and work as well.

The few jobs that are available are either shared among those who are highly connected to the corridor of power or sold to people who are willing to pay an arm and a leg (alleged to be around GHs20,000 per person). How can such people work for the benefit of the country? How productive can they be? This is an open secret that no one wants to talk about!

Due to the extreme hardship facing Ghana, the ruling class, with cup in hand, continue to run to the Bretton Woods Institutions especially the International Monetary Fund(IMF) for bailouts. The media and the ruling class think that the IMF is the only way out despite that it is the seventeenth (17^th ) time that Ghana had gone to the IMF for a bailout. The political class and their cohorts have failed to recognise that the IMF was not set up to develop Ghana but to ensure that the United States and Western countries plunder Ghana's resources with the aid of their local accomplices in power.

As matter of urgency, on this Republic Day, the leadership of the Social Justice Moment Ghana(SJMG) is calling on the good people of Ghana not to despair but be resolute. There is no better time than now to organise, provide an alternative means of political struggle and challenge the stranglehold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) over Ghana’s politics and power. The SJMG is working with like-minded people, who are also progressives,to develop robust political strategies to wrestle power from the NPP and NDC. And the political party to rescue Ghana is the Progressive Alliance for Ghana (PAG). PAG is calling on all people across the country to join it. PAG is not for moneybags. It is for everyone. Organise yourselves wherever you are into a branch of the party. Elect yourselves to represent the party, spread this important news immediately everywhere. PAG is against the use of money to buy political power. That is one of the banes of Ghana's democracy today.

Together we shall win.
Happy Republic Day.
FORWARD TOGETHER.
Phanuel Yao Ayawli 0208850004, Hillary Adongo 0209381802

Nyeya Yen 0542026869 & Richard Asueme 0202228991