Will we ever get it right?
Ghana’s walk to the IMF could be described as a dog that has been defeated in battle and is walking away with its tail in between its thighs, and mumbling about God-knows-what. Indeed, it is obvious at this point that the dog has nothing to do than to walk away, angered by the fact that it has been beaten and scared off by its own contemporaries in a battle it could have won, and as it walks away, its pride would not let it accept that it has indeed been defeated.
This is the state Ghana finds herself today, being sent to the IMF reluctantly, yet approaching the said institution probably as the only hope for Ghana if we are to get out of this economic quagmire we find ourselves in.
Indeed, this sorry situation should not be seen as a partisan matter, and we should not make the attempt to lay the blame at the doorstep of any political party, whether in government or out of government. Those in government would blame past administrations for something wrong they did that might have visited such economic mayhem on Ghanaians, whilst they blame also the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. Those in opposition would not wait a second to blame the government for plunging the nation into this state due to a certain perceived mismanagement of the economy.
This is the situation Ghana finds herself in after over sixty years of political independence and in the midst of very promising human resource, not to talk about the numerous natural endowments God has blessed us with.
It is certain that Ghana is one of the nations that is blessed by nature; it is now a cliché’ to talk about our extensive gold reserves which have made the nation one of the centers of ‘galamsay’ (illegal mining) in the world with notorious foreign nationals defying all odds to be here to dig for gold. Ghana is one of the leading producers of Cocoa, a blessing Tetteh Quarshie bequeath us when he brought Cocoa seeds here from the Seychelles Islands. Perhaps, of the greatest of our blessings is our arable land that is so dependable that we could produce everything we need at any time of the year. And so, if the nation would want her economy to be agro-based, we could export from plantain to pineapple, from banana to cashew, name them.
What cannot we produce in this country, and what jobs cannot we create in the agricultural sector? A small country like ours with a population of 30 million, we would have needed extra labor and would have become the center of attraction for most of West African states. But the situation is rather reversed; we now have our sons and daughters enroute to the advanced world just to make ends meet. It is shocking to note the extent to which our nurses and health workers are massing up in the UK and Canada just so they could live some meaningful lives.
Aside the Bauxite, Manganese, Timbre, Diamond, Water resources, major tourist attractions, etc., there is now our new discovery—the Black Gold—which has shot us up to the status of an OPEC nation. The discovery of oil is something we cannot begin to think about—has it been a blessing or a curse?
In the midst of all these blessings Ghana has not been doing well to the extent that present and past governments have no choice than to be borrowing, a situation that has shot Ghana’s debt so high that the country is no more attractive to the international capital market.
It is therefore instrumental to say, that certainly, there is everything wrong with our governance style, not necessarily that of the present government, but what has come to be our approach to governance as a nation. The point it, between the NPP and NDC there is certainly no difference in policy direction and governance style, and that is why both parties have done little for the nation since the onset of the Forth Republic. Total dependance on western style governance and unwavering dependence on Britton Wood institutions is perhaps one of the reasons why we find ourselves where we are today.
Under President Mahama, we had the Senchi economic forum that sought to understand the economic stress Ghana was going through, and under this government, there was the Peduase conference where the government retreated to come up with some kind of solution to our economic woes. This suggests that, as a nation, we do not have it, and the earlier the ruling class understands that the better.
How is it that nations like Switzerland, the Netherland, Finland, etc., which cannot boast of any meaningful resource are developed when very endowed nations like Ghana go around with bowls begging for aid. This shows that something is wrong with us as a people and one wonders whether we would ever get it right. The unfortunate thing is that, this seemingly underperforming nature of our leadership has been spiced by the acute partisanship that has hit the nation. When NPP was in opposition they took on the government is circumstances that were sometimes not friendly, now it is the turn of the NDC to also sit back and enjoy every bit of the episode of ‘a wrecking ship.’ This would lead us nowhere and would only compound the problems our children would face should they take over from us.
Why cannot we get it right? That is the words on the lips of everybody who understands the situation. Why is it that, in the midst of plenty, we could go bankrupt and be desperate? The answer is that, as a nation, we have never woken up to the realization that leadership is everything, and that when we elect leaders, we should demand accountability from them, instead of singing their praises because they are either our party men or for the fact that we are directly benefiting from their leadership.
The white man has developed on the back of principle and has ensured that the right measures are put in place at all times in order to expect good results. Ghana, like most underdeveloped nations, could be compared to a student who does not take their lessons seriously, defies the principles of discipline and hard work, and upholds that of laziness and idleness. In the end, such a student, no matter how brilliant and endowed they may be, would certainly fail their examinations and face a future of uncertainties and challenges.
That is the story of our dear nation. We are busy politicking and fighting to undo each other, and placing individual interests above common good. This is where we find ourselves as a nation, and if such trends persist, we would be going nowhere as a people. We would continue to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the advanced community who are busy pursuing all the nice policies so they could maintain their status as prosperous nations.
