Editorial: We’re our own enemies

Former president Rawlings and president Mills Ghana, from all indications, has the potential to develop, independent of external support. The lyric of a popular reggae tune ‘Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery’ is applicable to the country, given the strange happenings being witnessed in the country today. History is replete with stories about countries which changed their fortunes through forging together as one people and supporting each other on the path of growth. Unfortunately, there are people in this country who consider things and persons foreign as more superior than theirs and therefore requiring support over their compatriots. For such people, their compatriots engaged in business and manufacturing must be subjected to all manner of ordeals so that their enterprises can crash out and given way to the foreign ones. Unknowing to some Ghanaians, between 75 and 85% of manufacturing is in the hands of foreigners, mainly Lebanese. Some Ghanaians do not find anything untoward about this trend. No time in the history of this country did the hatred for local initiatives manifest like during the so-called revolution. This was a time when progress in local initiative was a high risk factor, leading to the death of many businesses and even persons. Boakye Matress, Siaw’s Tata among others, were deliberately killed by officialdom. In the event, hundreds of Ghanaians were thrown into the streets, their sources of livelihood stopped from operating. The pull-him-down syndrome in officialdom is assuming a worrying dimension from events unfolding on the local terrain. What has happened to Kinapharma, as carried elsewhere in this edition, is typical and as the story unfolds, decent Ghanaians would be the wiser about the return of the dark days of the 80s. As for the Police, the operation they undertook, as though they were en route to Bawku, is most unfortunate at a time when our governance rating has unfortunately been downgraded on the international scene. The order-from-above syndrome is returning at such a fast speed that all decent Ghanaians must begin to fret. Was it President Mills who gave the order? Was it ex-President Jerry John Rawlings? Or Gbevlo-Lartey? The sordid development is already on the internet and it spells doom for our business environment. Kinapharma engages about 800 Ghanaians and exports to countries like Liberia, Senegal, Benin, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. Someone at the top of the political hierarchy thinks the company has grown too much wings and must be cut down to size. Why won’t our taxes suffer a setback and more Ghanaians finding themselves in the ranks of the unemployed, even as government continues to ape its commitment to ensuring a conducive business environment? The bunker mentality is fast gaining ground even as we seek to ensure good governance at least on paper. Other nasty events have already taken place and our sincerity in the eyes of the international business community has been dealt a devastating blow. Imagine the order for the stoppage of work on a hotel project, simply because it poses a security threat. This is simply madness and beyond imagination. Source: Daily Guide