Our Middle Class Is In Debt – Sylvester Mensah

The former NHIS boss under the NDC government, a strategic and financial management expert and a flagbearer hopeful for the opposition NDC has opined that the middle class of the Ghanaian economy is in debt. He made this revelation during an interview with Class FM in Accra. He believes that he possess the magic wand to make very monumental achievements given the opportunity.

When asked by the host of the interview how he was going to walk the talk since he has not been a president before and has no experience as president.

Mr. Mensah stated that 99% of those who become president the world over, become president for the first time and so the issue of whether one has been president before or not is neither here nor there and I don’t think it’s a good argument.

‘Experience is not necessarily the best indicator of performance because you could have twenty (20) years of bad experience which would not feed into a good performance but you could have just a year of good experience which could feed into a good performance and you could also have a situation where you have not had experience at that level but under such circumstances what is important to measure is potential’. He further explained that we are operating in a trust industry, politics thrives on trust and it is important for us to trust and to be able to trust also requires that you have some fair assessment and this is the essential instrument to measure trust. Mr. Sylvester Mensah was very emphatic that everywhere he has worked from party to corporate environment, through to public sector he has delivered! He therefore assured all Ghanaians that he is a Deliverer and a Performer and will deliver when given the nod to lead as flagbearer and subsequently president of the Republic of Ghana.

Mr. Sylvester Mensah expressed his unflinching passion to see Ghana develop speedily and placed on record that ‘I don’t think I come second to anyone when it comes to passion to see Ghana progress, passion to see policies and programs that will uplift people of this country from the difficulties they face’.

In expressing part of his vision voluminous vision for this country Mr. Sylvester Mensah pointed out his intention to ensure that mothers and children are catered for, there is enough consideration and attention for mothers and children, the vulnerable, develop and implement policies that will see the individual at the household level make progress, how the communities progresses and that will translates into national progress. As a social democratic party our focus is largely anchored on policies that deal with social protection that seek to pull out the under privileged, the marginalized, the socially excluded. We also want to look at the aged, how do we ensure that the aged who by no fault of theirs had no opportunity to work in any formal employment and who for which reason have no pensions and who are just dependent on individuals who are also having difficulties, how do we address it?

He also mentioned that the perceived middle class have become indebted, ideally the middle class must provide succour, must provide support to the under privileged, must be a source of happiness for the family, community and friends. But unfortunately today, our middle class appears to be even more depressed than what we can imagine. They are in debt using credit cards, they are always in debt paying rent advances, going for loans, having to travel they have to go for loans, having to support people they have to go for loans, etc. We have developed a kind of middle class that is not able to provide the kind of succour that ideally is required to provide.

Mr. Mensah’s idea is to ensure that there is fairness, there is equity, there is security for everyone and that no one is a threat to another, that there is moral leadership.