Ghana: Nation Building or Politics?

Do you believe in nation-building or politics? Do you even believe in theories or praxis?

Many people will say they believe in nation-building but then politics takes them away! Then, they will later say they believe in praxis when 'politics' fails them.

Praxis is when as a politician, you put your words into action. But how do you put your words into action? Many will still say through politics. Let's see how that works.

Politics is, of course, a phenomenon that is inevitable in our daily lives. It begins whenever two people have differences in opinion.

But as a youth, what is your opinion on politics in Ghana? Can that thing help us? Have you joined the bandwagon? The bandwagon is a fleeting vehicle of a group of people singing the same song and going in one direction. If I were you, I would start retreating from the bandwagon so that we can build the nation.

Well! Wait a bit, did you just ask how? How are we building Ghana? There are multiple ways but everything will have to start from within, and then it comes out.

It is us who must take the first step and when the first step is taken, then I can suggest a prominent theory to you to also think about it. First, we are the youths and growth lies in us. You have a lot of potential and you must not waste them.

However, you can be wasted if you don't take care. The first sign of going to waste is that you have enough talent and yet you are never needed. Your skill is never needed. As a good nation, she should have recognised your skills so that you can also be worth it. But right now, you are still not worth it perhaps, because you haven't gotten a job yet. And even if you have gotten one, it is never your dream job or where your talent lies.

You may mess up soon if you start to feel weary. Many of the jobs you don't like but you are in, can one day disappoint you. Nevertheless, you chose to stay because that is the only way out of your economic mess.

And the reason why we are suffering more nowadays as youths and fresh graduates is that no organisation is willing to grow with us. They are never in the business of nurturing you; they are in the business of using you to scale up themselves. So if you can't help them, they can't help you either.

You see someone well fit for the private sector job but one thing will disqualify them: how much work experience do you have? We need someone with a minimum of 3 years work experience. You just graduated last year, how then can you be fit for the job? You can only have two years work experiences, that's when you did some internships plus your one year national service. We are in trouble.

Speaking about building the nation, it all lies in good economic principles. Let me say theories. One of the major theories I believe in is the general theory of employment, interest and money. It is popularly known as the Keynesian theory.

This was propounded by John Maynard Keynes, an American economist, who graduated from Cambridge University in the UK. At that time, around the Second World War, many nations including America, bought into this theory because of how helpful it was.

With decent politics, it can help Ghana too. The theory says that in times of depression or economic mess up, the only way to bring back the economy is to make money flow everywhere. How can this happen? It can happen when there is an 'aggregate demand'. Thus, everyone starts spending more money and never hiding money.

But the question is, is it everyone who has the money? Already, the economy is hard for everyone; both the private individuals and the government. How then can they spend money?

That's true but the government still has some money. No matter how bad the economy goes, the central government still has something or reserves.

This is the money that the government must spend. How will the government spend? That's when it gives out huge contracts such as road construction, building, housing projects, and farming projects among others to the private businesses to do so that it (this government) will pay them.

To be specific for isntance, there are many private contractors so the government must employ them by giving them road contracts to do and take huge pay. Also, the government can hire private experts to use their equipment or machines to produce Ghana card. This way, money goes to these bodies to expand their business.

This will put money into their pockets to stand back up on their feet as private firms. Whilst doing that, they must have also employed people to work and also get paid. These people will also buy food, pay bills and run many petty transactions so the money will start to flow.

But a time will come when the Ghana government will not have enough to invest on the private businesses again. This is because it is paying high monies to these private firms to run. Also, the revenue it is gaining back from taxes is very small compared to the amount it is spending by employing those private firms to work.

At this moment, Ghana's government must start to borrow again from these same companies that it had employed to work on the various contracts because they have started recovering---making money. Therefore, it borrows by issuing what is called bonds, Treasury bills etc. They are called financial instruments. These financial instruments allow the government to have extra money back to invest directly in the public sector.

How? By running state institutions like education, hospitals, ministries, state farms etc so that later, it can pay back the private bodies their monies with interest.

Remember that in these state institutions like the ministries or schools, etc, the government gets revenues. Employees like government workers also pay taxes and to sustain the nation, these taxes must be used well. Underline "use well".

Basically, the aim is to get money to flow like water. When enough fuel flows through the machine, with a good operator, it works perfectly well and can send you to wherever you want to go. That's what the nation is like.

If money flows in Ghana wisely, and with good leadership, there can be peace because everyone, even a small boy can have some money in his pocket to spend on something and as that happens, money moves around.

But did you say the problem with Ghana right now is not about lack of money flow? Is it then a poor leadership style? Well! I will say it is both, or one leads to the other. The poor leadership style leads to the economic mess up and to bring back the economy, I strongly suggest combining this Keynesian theory with good leadership style or sincere politics.

As a youth, I will encourage you to sit down and think of something you can do to add value to yourself and also bring money to your pocket.

But I heard you asking; what is that thing?
I understand, the government sector is not willing to invest in the private sector to grow.

Meanwhile, many of the youths need money to scale up their businesses but no money and even if there is money, no favourable policies. Those who don't have businesses need jobs. Those who are self-employed need stable economy to make it. There are actually jobs but as conventional wisdom also suggests, finding a job in Ghana depends on who knows you. Not even who you know.

That's why I now agree with you that indeed, the problem of leadership is part of Ghana's economic turmoils but I am confident that if this theory is effectively combined with good leadership, this country can have life again and if not, then, that's our downfall.

One last thing! For the youth to find peace, the government should make it easy for us to access certain financial opportunities or schemes. These schemes such as scholarships, aids, jobs, benefits, and even jobs, etc, exist but you still have to pay money to access them. But where is the money in the first place?

AdamIntegrated...🙏😊