Gains Of Revolution Lost On Nation - Amekah

John Kwadzo Amekah

The Deputy General Secretary of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Mr , has observed that the gains achieved by Ghana’s revolution, which are probity, transparency and accountability, have been eroded over the years.

He said after many years of the revolution which created these virtues, it was unfortunate that the country was still experiencing lack of probity, accountability and transparency in the affairs of the nation.

He said there was mistrust and suspicion in the country, which was leading the nation nowhere. In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the DFP General Secretary challenged politicians to avoid worsening the division and further polarising the society, while allowing governance structures to work.

Mr Amekah said there was no sanity and harmony as far as the governance of the country was concerned, while the media was full of accusations and counter-accusations.

“There is no single day that the media, whether proven or not, does not report of individuals who have embezzled or misappropriated state funds”, he observed.

He said that did not augur well for the nation, particularly if those accusations were just for political expediency.

He said the country needed sanity and harmony in order to promote peace and tranquility, stressing “peace and tranquility will automatically promote national development”.

“I am worried about these issues affecting national development which will have serious consequences on the people”, he stated.

“I thought we did some work in the past, during the revolution, which sought to establish transparency, probity and accountability; if after all these years we continue to criticise the very structures and hold individuals responsible for the current socio-economic and political mess, then the question arises whether the revolution succeeded in creating the very needed structures which aimed at correcting those anomalies”, he lamented.

He said in the past we held individuals responsible for the woes of the country for which people shed their blood for the sake of probity, accountability and transparency.

“It is, therefore, not good that after many years of the revolution we have come full cycle repeating the same ugly mistakes of the past,” he told the Daily Graphic.

The revolution put in place the requisite structures to cure the woes of the country and questioned whether we should not allow the structures we had put in place to work.

When there are lapses we should work to correct them so that we will have a perfect structure that will regulate the conduct of individuals who serve in various positions of governance and civil society. By so doing, we will achieve the purpose of the revolution, he stated.

Mr Amekah added regrettably that currently, the way we attack individuals and do not allow governmental structures to work was not good since it tended to create confusion, disharmony, disaffection and disunity. The country cannot move forward with this behaviour, he stated.

“Those of us who launched the revolution, if we are the same people seen to be holding individuals responsible and calling them all kinds of names for working with laid-down structures tend to weaken the very revolution we launched and create the picture that the ideals of the revolution have not been achieved”, he further stated.

On the economy, Mr Amekah said there was the need for certain structures to be put in place to help the small-scale enterprises to grow.

The structures, he said, should identify and solve the problems associated with the SMEs which were not only monetary constraints, but raw material production as well as energy needs.

The necessary infrastructure needs to be in place to help the SMEs to grow and the government must take a lead role.

He urged Ghanaians to place premium on cotton production to feed the textile industries in order to open up the SMEs and create jobs. SMEs are a potential investment opportunity.

It is time we focused on developing the micro structures to benefit individuals. When individuals are doing well, the economy will expand and the government will benefit through revenue generation.

He said when government revenue increased, the government could balance its budget without depending on the IMF and World Bank which had harsh conditionalities.

Mr Amekah indicated that the revolution put in place structures for probity, accountability and transparency and if those structures had been allowed to function, no individuals could have manipulated the system.

He added that if after many years of the revolution we are not able to establish that, then we have no justification; we need to create structures that nobody could manipulate. If we are still talking about lack of accountability, transparency and probity then we have failed the nation.

The fruit of the revolution is that the people who serve in government must demonstrate probity and accountability and show transparency in all their governance dealings.

So far, Ghana had failed to establish these virtues without anybody raising the red flag.