Are The Figures, A True Reflection Of The Reality?

Statistics about economic growth or performance are always expected to be a true reflection of the standards of living of the citizenry in a given time period.

Investors, both local and international depends largely on these figures to make informed and viable business decisions to keep themselves moving and remain relevant in their various sectors.

Elsewhere, economic growth figures often has a corresponding positive impact on the living conditions of the people.

Europe and Asia economic growth figures correspond swiftly to the living standards of their citizenry.

But the tragedy in some African countries and Ghana is not an exception is that, economic growth or performance figures often released by Authorities do not clearly have a corresponding positive impact on the lives of citizens. In our part of the world, the economic growth figures or outlook keeps shinning and glittering on paper, but the reality however is that, the living standards and conditions of majority of people keeps worsening and deteriorating day by day.

The economy growth rate is virtually parallel to that of our living conditions. In other words, the growth outlook of the economy has no clear relationship or link to the ordinary people of the country.

Recently, Ghana economy recorded an estimated growth of 8.3% with a national debt stock of 69.3% of our GDP. One would have expect that, the recent gains in economic performance will have great impact on the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian citizens.

But , in the contrary, some people in Ghana could still not afford three meals a day, others can't get access to basic health care services, the whole country is served with only 55 ambulances and some clinics can't even boast of a motorcycle.

Hand-to-mouth is as difficult as hunting for the elephant and access to accommodation can be liken to digging for a Gold. There are still Ghanaians who put's up(sleep) under the overheads bridges and the pavements of the roads in our cities and towns across the country. Our roads and public places are invaded by beggars and streetchildren.

As for the public transport system, the least said about it , the better. Street lightening is a major problem in the national and regional capitals, but yet we are charged for streetlights on our electricity bills.

The education sector is not left out of the hook, school children still learn under trees, teachers struggle to teach ICT out of the computer laboratory because there is none like a computer lab in most schools.

one sometimes wonder how the figures are calculated. Perhaps, because am not an economist. There appears to be a mysterious formula use in calculating our economic outlook figures. The ordinary Ghanaians are not always the beneficiaries of the Ghanaian economy growth and I wonder when they will be.

By:
Rahman T.Y Rasheed, visit [email protected]