THE LIGHTS ARE ON, BUT NO ONE’S HOME!

It's the festive season and as usual this time of the year, everywhere sparkles with Christmas light, as soon as the Sun sets.

However, there's yet another controversy casting a gloomy shadow over the Cities of Accra and Kumasi. CEO of ECG has been fired a month ago and the President has in a struggling manner appointed a suitable candidate to replace him; the controversial Ministry of Power (better named – Ministry of Power Generation) has also be created. All these are emblematic of the government's inability to function properly with no interest in doing the job they were elected for, run amok.

The failure to appoint qualified and skilled people is not for want for suitable candidates interested in the various positions in the government apparatus but rather because the Presidency is jostling to bulldoze in their favorite candidate who they would control and who would rubber-stamp their questionable and dubious deals.

The countries problems are many and diverse but could still be dealt with successfully, with proper planning and execution and with no interference from greedy politicians who have forgotten their mandate.

The Government should reshuffle his ministers, CEOs and Executive Directors in critical positions and appoint a wider group of people who are knowledgeable, responsible, accountable and above all patriotic. At the moment, Ghana's future and direction is determined by a handful of people whose only qualification is an NDC membership card or being a friend of those in power.

If these unscrupulous executives in various positions are allowed to bring in their lackey, it will mean the recycle continues. What they have achieved is to make it impossible to own a decent house or job and live a dignified life in the country. While starving the working and middle class of their salary increments and in some cases many months' arrears, they have only fed the insatiable thirst of greedy politicians who continue to turn the young people and graduate of this country into a hopeless situation.

There does not seem to be a plan to deal with the country's biggest challenges and Ghanaians have yet to see any innovative solutions to our problems. One gets the idea that the country plods on from one day to another with no serious and definitive goal in mind. Not even the recent spate of bad publicity prodded the country's management to come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the electricity crisis (dumsor-dumsor) in Ghana. It's the hope of Ghanaians that the government and its Power Ministry start afresh in 2015!

MICHAEL ADDANEY ([email protected])