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13.09.2008 Feature Article

LAMENTATION OF WE, THE LAZY GHANAIANS

LAMENTATION OF WE, THE LAZY GHANAIANS
13.09.2008 LISTEN

It is quite interesting to note that when our politicians are at their wits end, they resort to “talking by heart”. This is precisely what President Kuffuor did when he posited that Ghanaians would have had money in their pockets had they not been lazy.

The unfortunate aspect of the behaviour of our current crop of leaders is their selective amnesia. Because they conveniently forget the past, they assume we all do the same thing. President Kuffuor has lived in Ghana throughout his life and as all of us know, he has not been known to be a hard worker. Those of us close to him remember very well how his wife had to travel to London to work in healthcare facilities to earn money for the construction of their current house. His short stint with the Kumasi City Council and chairmanship of Asante Kotoko Football club, together with his mismanagement of his brick factory, earned him a record that under normal circumstances would have denied him the presidency of Ghana.

Ghanaians wanted a change so we voted for him in 2000 and repeated it in 2004 and look at what we have now. A man who has traveled over 200 times since becoming president—making trips that our ambassadors should be making---and squandering huge sums of money. Just ask yourself what these new leaders would have done had Rawlings, during his presidency, undertaken even one-third of the international trips made by Kuffuor.

Taking us for fools, the President's doctors through their trashy newspapers, The Daily Guide and The Statesman, tell us that his travels have yielded dividends for the country. What dividends? They are quick to point to the Millennium Challenge Accounts (MCA) and the international goodwill the country now enjoys. Let me point out here that our eligibility for the MCA had absolutely nothing to do with Kuffuor's travels. It had everything to do with the Rawlings engineered successful transition to democracy in 1992 in tandem, again, with the Rawlings supervised peaceful change-over from one ruling political party to the other in opposition in 2000. These are the facts and regardless of how we detest them, we cannot erase them the history books.

A fact which most Ghanaians whose taxes support presidential trips need to know is what goes on during these presidential trips. Several newspapers have revealed the huge hotel bills that are accumulated by the huge presidential entourage. What we do not hear is that during these trips, some of the officials, reporters, cameramen, security personnel who travel with the president, engage in all sorts of “womanizing”-a la Dr. Anane style. There are reported instances in which some of these people have openly harassed married women in the U.K and U.S.A to the point of breaking their marriages. Some of these cases have been reported to the president himself but like other cases, nothing was done.

The general assumption is that in addition to looting national coffers, some of these presidential “hangers on” behave as if they are untouchable because their party is in power or more importantly, everybody, inclusive of the president, is “womanizing”. We all know what happened to the married woman who used to run the restaurant near Nyaho Clinic--how she was snatched by a “big” man in the president's household to the amazement of the husband whose father used to own a beer brewing company.

It is only when this government leaves office that we will know the extent of the damage it did to the moral fabric of this country and its crimes against humanity! As they say, “aponkyerene wu a na yebehu ne tenten” which means we will know the length of the frog when it dies!

So we know that our officials are not enjoying these privileges by any dint of hardwork. If anything at all, they are displaying unequalled parasitic lifestyles that any progressive society would not tolerate. What about the average Ghanaian? He/she has to confront the impossible daily life struggles—from finding money to pay school fees to coping with erratic water/electricity supply—not to mention feeding and the exorbitant transport costs. Then in the evening, he/she is denied the luxury of retiring peacefully to bed with the family by the general insecurity in the country. Is it any wonder that we are witnessing rapid increases in morbidity and mortality rates?

After subjecting us to all these inhuman experiences, the president who should initiate policies and programmes to ameliorate our record hardships, describes us as “lazy”! Then he adds insult to injury by informing us that he is using our tax money to fly to the U.S. to honour a dinner invitation from the most unpopular president in world history, George Bush.

How should we the “lazy” ones pay this president back; vote his party out in December.

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