THE TEAM OF POPULAR YOUTH (TOPY) APPEALS TO DOCTORS, PHARMACISTS, TEACHERS AND THE GHANAIN WORKERS NOT TO ROCK THE BOAT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The Team Of Popular Youth (TOPY) wishes to take this opportunity to appeal to all striking workers and those who are planning to do so to rally behind President John Dramani Mahama as he takes feasible and well-thought-out actions to resolve their grievances alongside his efforts towards finding a lasting solution to the numerous problems facing our Economy in general.
Whilst it is true that Ghana has achieved a tremendous economic feat over the decades, becoming a lower middle income country with a strong indication to attain a full middle-income status soon, our motherland seems to be at the crossroad today as our economy faces eminent collapse from the series of strike actions coming from organised labour. What is most disheartening is the refrain from most commentators that 'strike is the only language that government understands'. This comment relegates to the background the truism that government must not only promise workers improved conditions of service but must also ensure that there is enough in the kitty to actualise the promise.
For us, the Prof. Mills government and the current government have shown enough goodwill to the public sector workers by implementing the Single Spine Salary Structure even though government was fully aware that the jacking up of the salaries from about GHS 2.5 billion to about GHS 9 billion as of today would not instantly increase productivity to justify the expenditure.
Yet as the debate ranges on, the impression is being created in the minds of the ordinary Ghanaian that national income is simply the Ghana Cedi we carry in our pockets. We therefore wish to stress the fact that money is not the national income itself. Money is only a means of measurement and a medium of exchange of the national income, which is the wealth workers collectively produce at the end of the day. Analogically, if we produced only 2 million bags of maize for the month, that is what the amount of Ghana Cedis offered as salaries would be able to share to Ghanaians.
It must therefore be emphasised that if government is pushed, they might end up printing more money just to fulfil the 'nominal' interest of the striking workers, but the consequence shall put us on the path of the Zimbabwean experience.
Many people recount the Zimbabwean economic disaster, but only few asked how they got to that abyss where by Mid November 2008 the inflation rate in Zimbabwe sky-rocketed to about 79,600,000% from March, 2007 to November, 2008 to the extent that the citizens of that country carried basket loads of Zimbabwean currency to the market only to return with an unbelievable scanty amount of food stuff.(Hanke and Kwok,2009:355;Makochenkanwa,2007)
So, whilst we acknowledge the grievances of the striking workers, we wish to draw our attention to the fact that any group of people who argues for more salaries without increased productivity is just in disguise telling the government to redistribute the same amount of wealth created in the economy in their own favour to the detriment of the rest of society.
It is in this light that the Team of Popular Youth (TOPY) wishes to add its voice to the call by Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah that the universities must join forces with the Polytechnics to engage in researches that would solve most of our socio-economic problems.
Whilst universities the world over boast of themselves as the repository of knowledge and solution, we are yet to see our universities being at the forefront of solving the numerous problems confronting us as a nation. As the University Teachers press home their demand for improved conditions of service, we the youth, most of whom are unemployed and for that matter could not afford to demand for increased salaries, wish to see the same level of pressure and commitment from the universities compelling government to implement any solution they have found to our socio-economic problems for the general good.
We hereby humbly appeal to every progressive minded Ghanaian to do all he or she can individually or collectively, to find solutions to our problems whilst keeping at bay every act or omission that would tend to erode the gains so far made as a nation.