Wise Men and Women wanted for Ghana's Parliament

As we prepare to go to the polls on 7th December 2024 to elect 276 (two hundred and seventy-six) parliamentarians and a president to run our country’s affairs from January 2025 to December 2028, we must ensure that the men and women we choose to govern us are those who are wise, responsible, sensible, with their mental faculties intact and of course, fit to think through national issues critically, objectively, with competence and commitment for the benefit of Ghanaians and not their political parties. They must serve the people of Ghana and refrain from imposing their will over us.

Since the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP) on 24th February 1966, Ghanaians have not been blessed with succeeding governments capable of continuing the developmental process Nkrumah started. Instead, the perpetrators of Nkrumah’s overthrow that have changed their name 3 (three) times; from United Party (Danquah, Busia, Dombo tradition to Progress Party (K. A. Busia) and now known as the New Patriotic Party (NPP), courtesy of ex-President J. A. Kuffuour went on the rampage to close down many important projects introduced by Nkrumah under Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC) to try and erase the memories and achievements of Nkrumah. Thank God they could not close down all infrastructures Nkrumah put into place, eg, KNUST, University of Cape Coast, several secondary schools, Akosombo Dam, Tema Motorway, Tema township and loads of them which cannot be listed here. However, we lost the Gold Refinery at Tarkwa, Aboso Glass Factory, Bonsa Tyre Factory, Bolgatanga Meat Factory, Kade Match Factory and many others.

The phenomenon of closing down or discontinuing projects undertaken by previous administrations in Ghana has had a disastrous effect on our economy and no single government has addressed this issue that has become the norm. An exception whereby a project by a previous administration must be discontinued may be the National Cathedral under construction that was arguably ill-conceived and not of national interest. There are more important projects and critical issues of national interest and concern which must be considered in the first year of the next administration that takes over from the Akuffo-Addo government. My call for wise men and women to serve in our next parliament is to embrace the idea of individual accountablity rather than collective responsibilities of our next government. We need people who shall stand for principle and such are the ones we must elect to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty and work hard to benefit those who elect them into parliament. The next parliament must agree to be our servants and not our masters.

Ghana is now a poor country that imports any and everything from across the world including secondhand clothes and even tooth picks. Our national currency is at the mercy of external market forces. Exporting our primary commodities like gold, oil, cocoa and other raw materials, without adding value to them and being exposed to fluctuations in global commodity prices affect the value of our local currency, the Cedi. There is no government support for our local manufacturers to enter competitive international markets. Closing down some banks in the sector cleaning exercise of 2017 was not the best for the country. The exercise exposed the incompetence of the governing Bank of Ghana and Ministry of Finance which clearly failed to monitor the day-to-day operations of the smaller banks in the country. Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom’s 300 (three hundred) bank branches nationwide which employed thousands of workers had drawn Dr Nduom and his Progressive People’s Party to the general public and Ghana government planned and succeeded in stopping Nduom and his political party the PPP from joining the Presidential and Parliamentary race of 2020 and 2024. Dr Nduom has recently charged the government to come out clearly to identify, those who connived to withdraw his banking license whilst retaining our former Minister of Finance’s Data Bank. One is unsure if the withdrawal of Nduom’s GN Banking license is the end of the matter. At best, a national Committee of Enquiry must be set up to investigate the closing down of not only GN Bank but also other banks that were made to suffer the same fate as Dr Nduom.

Calling for Wise Men and Women to govern our country in our next parliament means that our next government must address the issue of unmotorable potholes, causing several accidents, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives annually mainly due to insufficient police presence to control driving on our roads nationwide. Constant power outages or Dumsor, lack of regular water supply, and the need for purification of our rivers due to illegal mining popularly known as Galamsey. Nana Kwame Bediako’s Galamsey Manifesto is laudable if only our next parliament shall liaise with him to turn the Galamsey menace into an advantage. The comparisons between the NPP and NDC in their campaigning as to which of them served Ghana better is very childish an lacks substance because these two evils are the reason Ghana is backward in this 21^st century. The less Ghanaians talk about them, the better it would be for our country. We are desperately looking forward to a turnaround in administering our country’s affairs and we expect the 276 parliamentarians and one president to take Ghana into new heights. In other words we must vote for other smaller political parties to come together in a Coalition capable of making an impact in our next parliament.

Our healthcare system needs to be overhauled to introduce a National Healthcare that looks after the citizenry as the old man Nkrumah did with the introduction of Polyclinics. We have insufficient ambulances in the country and I am informed that one must pay before an ambulance can called to attend to an emergency This brings back to memory the “ Cash and Carry” medical care about two decades ago. There are numerous mentally-charged people walking aimlessly on our streets and there is no government intervention to address their needs. Of course the World Health Organisation (WHO) is there to support vulnerable people in our kind of third world, the question I am asking is that has our Ghanaian government ever approached them for support to look after our own mentally challenged people whom we gleefully brand as “ mad men and women” look after these vulnerable people.who have been rejected by their own families. and our government has no package to address their situation.

Our problems in Ghana are endless and I can go on and on but the important thing for us all to consider is to elect Wise men and women to go to Parliament to fight for good governance over our broken society. My party, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has only twelve candidates vying with other competitors to go to our next parliament. They are our very well prepared Twelve Apostles who are going to make big differences in our next parliament so please give your votes to them when you see our “Red” sun sign on Saturday 7^th December 2024 Generally I would advise us all not to sell , but to cast our votes wisely so we can have good people to govern us with the fear of the Lord as their guiding principle.

Kit Yawson
Chairman
Progressive People’s Pary (PPP)
United Kingdom