Our Leaders Are 'dealers': The Ghana's Condition..... Part 2

Fellow Ghanaians, in the land of our elders it is said the pot retailer is not in business.

I am swimming in my own pool of tears for this epistle.

Indeed, Governance is a serious business, a cliché Ghanaian politicians have been using like another Word.

And it must not be reduced to "borrowing, building, and bragging".

In the fullest of time, I suggest Ghanaians may also have to hire a Canadian to preside over their affairs as president of Ghana.

The UK 'hired' Mark Joseph Carney, a Canadian, to manage the Bank of England in 2013.

The pound sterling remains the highest currency on earth, not even the almighty dollar can match it.

Perhaps, it is high time for Ghanaians to borrow a leaf from the UK.

In our case, we may have to hire a President.
Sorry for the digression. Let's now get to the meat of this article.

It is tearfully painful being a living witness to the activities of uncontrollable ATM politicians who remain the hungriest political vultures in our politically contested space in this geographical contiguity call Ghana.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said it is religion that keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

And our elders, again, say it is never forbidden for the pot used to cook the monkey to be used to prepare the flesh of the bulldog in a light soup.

Besides, he who worships banana must worship the plantain!

I don't know what is keeping the impoverished but clean-minded political kingmakers (electorates) of this country from murdering their oppressors they mistook as liberators that they voted into political power.

I am not inciting anybody against authority, I am just lamenting why we are so okay with "official thieves" in our clime, but crucifying the ordinary thieves who steal to escape pauperization and deprivation in abject poverty.

No wonder, we are gradually becoming the poverty capital of the world! Kai!!

I am an ardent viewer of Point of View on Citi TV and always enjoy every bit of it.

But last Monday I had mixed emotions watching the program.

I didn't know whether to cry or laugh listening to the arguments submitted by the veteran lawmakers invited to dissect matters of our financial situation as a country.

The host of that most viewed Talk Show, Bernard Avle, empanelled the official liaison officer of government (Information Minister) Honorable Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Honorable Isaac Adongo (Member of Parliament for Bolega Central), Honorable Cassiel Ato Forson (former Deputy Finance Minister and Minority Spokesperson on finance in Parliament), and the Member of Parliament for Banatama Constituency in the Ashanti Region.

The topic was on the state of our current debt stock, which the Governor of Bank of Ghana, Prof. Addison, announced to have increased by Eighty billion Ghana Cedis (80,000,000,000).

Ballooning the National Debt Stock to a staggering over two hundred billion Ghana cedis.

The Minority's concern was the breakneck speed the debt stock has increased. Because, according to them, one of the campaign tools used by the then opposition NPP, was excessive borrowing on the part of the then Mahama-led administration, NDC.

It therefore beat their intelligence, that a party that claims to be better managers of the Ghanaian economy can finally take over political power and in less than one term, has borrowed a whopping eighty billion, double the amount the NDC borrowed.

Meanwhile, during the campaign season the NPP claimed Ghana has all it needs in terms of resources to survive the doldrums of global economy, and does not need to borrow to build a resilient economy. It was simply lack of the economic wherewithal to run the economy independently without even going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

So, the Minority led by the Bolega's Adam Smith, graced the Point of View Talk Show in order to expose to Ghanaians, such a stinking political hypocrisy dabbled in by the government.

It was a fierce debate littered with offensive name calling.

Unless any Ghanaian who was in coma, we all were witnesses to the economic mess caused by the Mahama-led administration trumpeted by the opposition.

Their economic mess was manifested in the growth of negative integers supervised in every department of our economy that led to a dramatic nose dive of our Gross Domestic Product, GDP's growth, from 9.1 in 2008 under the NPP to 3.7 in 2016 under the NDC.

The exchange rate of the cedi against the dollar (at 3.5) was deemed rotten by the NPP in opposition in the build up to the 2016 general elections.

After three years of economic management by the New Patriotic Party, NPP, we have seen a fantastic GDP growth from the 3.7 left by the NDC in 2016 to 6.7 in 2019.

However, whilst Mahama-led administration borrowed 40 billion Ghana cedis in their full one term (four years), the NPP has in less than one term (four years) borrowed eighty billion Ghana cedis, according to the Minority.

The government felt it was the most fantastic falsehood the opposition NDC could peddle against the government.

So the Information Minister, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah met his colleagues MPs to debunk this wild allegation on that program hosted by Bernard Avle, the Journalist of the year.

The Hon. Information Minister argued that, yes, the national debt stock has seen a dramatic increase but it is not true that government has borrowed to such a tune of physical cash.

He argued that certain unavoidable factors such as Transaction Effect, and Exchange Rate, have been responsible for that amazing figure of eighty billion.

But the question is, what accounted for the 40 billion the NDC, too, borrowed during their period in government?

Didn't those unavoidable factors play a role and influence the amount the NDC borrowed, and that it wasn't out of recklessness as the government wants to defend? Fine.

Ghanaians may not rise up to do political cleansing of politicians in the political landscape but their own propaganda might do that job for Ghanaians.

It is clear that Ghanaians, like the pot retailer, do not have leaders but dealers who will take us for a ride by feathering their nests in the name of Ghanaians.

Be that as it may, the only difference between the NDC and the NPP is thinner than the very thread that holds our economy.

Both are concerned solely about their affairs and not the wellbeing of the dying masses.

In less than two decades our leaders have borrowed in our name, over two hundred billion accumulated waiting for us and generation unborn to pay through slavery, yet our lives have not transformed positively in any meaningful way.

Chunkiest of Ghanaians continue to feed from dustbins.

Plenty purses have grown leaner than ever, and the number of 'Almajiri' (beggars) increased.

The number of counterfeit men of God has soared who are experts in the exploitation of the gullible Ghanaian.

There are sex traders everywhere with aspiring prostitutes and candidates as pimps, appearing in every nook and cranny.

Sex, fundamentally created by God to be enjoined in marriage, has crept out of matrimonial home into every corner where lusts meets desire champion by sexual hedonists, all because of the level hunger in the land.

Today, Ghanaians are hungrier than they were before independence and the immediate years that followed.

Is this a curse or what?
Sixty two years after independence, we are still in this mess?

Is it defocused leadership?
God save Ghana.
TO BE CONTINUED....
The writer, Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem, is a 'student' (MasterCard Scholar) at KNUST.

E-mail: [email protected]
Contact: 0557762967.