On The Ghana ICT Blackboard Teacher Gone Viral On The Internet

It is such a shame Ghana has dedicated young people all across the globe but this human resource has been suppressed by a few in power that one former coup leader-turned President called "greedy bastards"!

The leadership Ghana has been bequeathed with, in the last 52 years after Kwame Nkrumah, does not do justice to the amount invested in some of us in higher education in Ghana and with the generosity of the developed world in mostly Europe, North America and Australia and even Russia. Ghana has more medical Doctors, Engineers, Scientists and people of Managerial competence overseas than in Ghana and the shame is that politicians talk as if these men should pack their bags and go back to Ghana as their home without jobs! Some ignorant Media practitioners simply talk as if a human being can simply walk to Ghana and without a job or a few million dollars, can start "helping his country"!

It is true that Ghana is a blessed and resourced small country; but we have no excuse the way our leaders spend our money like Royals! With resource limitations, they are buying $100,000 luxury vehicles when a $25,000 would do the same job. They are paying colonial allowances in cash to politicians and civil service executives for attending meetings and for travel, when most high schools students graduate without having seen or touched a computer.

Our President has been traveling around the world and preaching about "Ghana without aid", and boasting about free high school education. Sure some credit must be given for that human empathy and should be supported. However, the truth is that all free education does is redistribute national wealth! So far despite talk about industries, there has been no tangible plan seen to help small and medium businesses with Low interest loans and capital, or a plan for reliable delivery of electricity! None!!

If we are not even honest enough to buy the right size and capacity equipment for energy distribution, in more than 15 years since "Dumsor" was first experienced in Ghana, who are we kidding to come and invest in Ghana!

Politicians seem to forget, but talk without planning is meaningless. In fact it is Public deception or fraud to make promises to entice others without adequate preparation!

Honestly looking at this Video and how an educated Minister sits down in some suit and recites how many schools are going to be equipped with something called e-Transform program he does not even seem to understand, there will be no doubt in anybody's mind that we leave room for others to insult us that we are a people of low IQ and low Integrity running an S-HOLE nation!

Most likely this Education Minister does not even know how to use the Computer himself and the value of it! It is no laughing matter, as there are some educated PhD holders who left the US around early 1990s to return to Ghana and even some became Ministers of State, and yet today never learned how to do email let alone surf the Web for valuable information and to communicate with others!

The POINT is that these people in Government claim they don't have money to buy computers for schools but

- parents were paying ICT fees.
- Govt executives are spending money to buy $100,000 Toyota Landcruiser when a Toyota 4-Runner at $30,000 would do just fine!

- a $100 million fund could not be accounted for and perhaps stolen and reported as given to Roland Agambire and his RLG computer company to supply free Laptops to schools in the 2010 to 2013 time. To date the $100 million seems lost or misapplied and misappropriated, and nobody has been prosecuted!!

I sincerely think Ghana's President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has his heart at the right place and seems to want to do a good job. What is ruining our type of nations and cultures and makes his job harder and for us to be insulted by others are simple:

1. The lack of concern for the needs of the taxpaying electorate by most of the decision makers. A small example is a Minister spending $50,000 to decorate his office and having not even $3 folding chairs for senior citizens on appointment to sit down, and stand waiting for 3 hours!

2. The lack of trained management skills needed to transform the President's vision to reality. As many have found out it takes more than mere ceremonies and even machinery, or even MBA degree, to open a Sugar Factory!

In addition to these are
3. the public thievery called corruption, which are allowed to ruin our type of nations because our leaders simply do not have the will to enforce laws!

I have elaborated these in my first book: Leadership Concepts and the Role of Government in Africa: The Case of Ghana (Danso, K.A., 2007).

There is no doubt Ghana has the skilled technical and managerial labor, but mostly scattered around the globe. It takes more than mere talk or patriotism for men to leave their homes and families to come to Ghana and "help their country", as often recited by politicians. It takes planning, job descriptions and advertisement and attractive hiring packages. And it takes venture capital and stable reliable electricity to develop an economy!!

May God open the minds and hearts of our leaders and open the doors for the youth.

God bless Ghana.
Dr. Kwaku A. Danso, Mar.16, 2018
Co-Founder/President,
Ghana Leadership Union (GLU)