There is too much poverty in the country:in the cities and in the countryside.There is too much corruption in the country: in the NDC and NPP, police service and CEPS; at the harbours; in the universities, polytechnic, teachers' training and nursing schools sex for grades and money for admission. Many people are victims.
The illiteracy level in the country is very high: 44% of the adult population cannot read and write. Unemployment is very high between 25 and 50%. Many of the youth have no jobs and have resorted to illegal activities such as armed robbery, prostitution and other social vices.Graduates from our universities are without jobs either and many are doing their best to leave the country for the corrupt politicians.
Water pollution and poor sanitation is everywhere in our cities. The people of Teshie and Nungua are using the sea and the coast as places of convenience because they have no access to toilets. Many people in our cities and towns are without quality and the right quantity of water. In some communities, residents have to live without water for weeks if not months, yet there is a president and his ministers who receive tens of millions of cedis every month for not providing the people with water.
People live in mud houses roofed with raffia leaves in most of our rural areas. They are without electricity, water and social security. In the cities people have no mortgage, they face high renting and utility bills with poor services. Power cuts is everywhere in the country, yet every month the minister of energy receives millions of cedis for not providing the people with the facilities thy need.
Farmers have no access to tractors and fertilisers and have to plant using cutlasses and hoes every planting and harvesting season. They have no access to irrigation facilities and if nature fails to provide them with water then they are doomed.
There is entropy of infrastructure decay in the country. There are no proper waste management system.The traffic jams and pollution in Accra and Kumasi are unbearable.
There is food shortage everywhere and prices are beyond the reach of ordinary Ghanaians as a result malnutrition is increasingly affecting most of the children especially in the rural areas.
Poverty is driving more and more children into the streets of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Ho, Tema and many others. Children serving as head potters are visible everywhere in the country. They are selling ice water, coconut, plantain chips and other hawking activities. They are sacrificing their education to find food for themselves. The MPs, the president, the vice president and their ministers drive by: some of them even stop to buy the stuff these children are selling without asking question why these children who are supposed to be in school and be trained as future leaders are on the street selling.
Most hospitals are without essential medicines and medical staff are in short supply in most health institutions. The minister of health says there is no money for medicines but every month taxes are paid so where does the money go?
Ghana has not modernized at all. 52 years after independence we still carry things on our head and wash our clothes with our hand. Nothing is manufactured in the country not even bicycles let alone cars, computers, dish washers and heavy equipments that help nations to develop. We are a nation that depend on what others have used and thrown away. Our economy is is littered with used computers, used clothes, used cars things that most Ghanaians could not do without. NDC and NPP have been promising to build castles in Ghana, yet people are living mud houses. We cannot even device plans to help our farmers to increase food production. We have not recognised that the cutlasses and hoes they have been using since the time of slavery and colonialism cannot help us to move forward as a nation.
Rawlings and his P(NDC) spent 19 years joking and toying with Ghanaians and the problems facing them. Kuffour and his NPP spent 8 years talking more and doing little.
Attah Mills has been in power for one year and has not found his feet yet, though his ministers are enjoying tax payers' money, driving Land Cruiser while fishermen have no premix fuel.
There is corruption at the Castle where Alex Segbefia who is the deputy chief of staff at the Castle and his men are rapping Tema harbour of cars that have been seized by the state. Those at the helm of affairs are doing their best to loot as much as they can for themselves leaving Ghanaians to suffer.
Frustration, hopelessness and desperation are written in the face of many Ghanaians. Ghanaians appear to have no leader: a leader who will provide jobs for the youth; a leader who will provide infrastructure for the economic take off, a leader who will transform Ghana's railway sector into viable transportation industry; a leader who is a problem solver and not just arm-chair president.
Come 2012 NDC and NPP politicians aided by the corrupt press and media practitioners will come with the same pack of lies, deceits and with smooth words: vote for us and we will do this and that but once they get to parliament they cannot even put a bill together to solve some of the problems. Once they become ministers they cannot even formulate policies let alone implement one.
Ghanaians are suffering not because we are poor in terms of natural resources. We are poor because we have bad political leaders who are interested in getting power without using the power to help develop the nation for all to benefit. Those entrusted with the management of the nation are simply visionless. They love to drive in convoy at the expense of the nation yet have no idea how to help Ghana become a food sufficient nation. More than 52 years after independence we still import rice from China and India and there is no sign that the importation will stop soon.
Ghana is a leading gold exporter but where does the money go? Ghana is a leading cocoa exporter but where does the money go? Rawlings couldn't give a straight answer when he was asked. Kuffour could'nt give a straight answer either. We continue to receive grants from rich countries in the global north but the politicians and their business friends are not allowing it to have impact in the country.
Hundreds of loan agreements have signed and billions of dollars have been received by our governments (Rawlings and Kuffour and now Mills) and we are paying heavy fees for it yet Ghanaians cannot trace where all the loan money has gone or the projects it has been used to complete.
It is so sad that the leaders who came after Nkrumah have done very little to add to the foundation he laid. I don't know what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Akosombo dam. I don't what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Tema city and the harbour with all the infrastructures and industries such as Valco. Nkrumah spent 9 years from 1957 to 1966 doing all these landmark projects, Rawlings and his PNDC spent 19 years doing nothing but selling what Nkrumah built and where did the money go? Rawlings and his PNDC couldn't even maintain the things Nkrumah did let alone adding some to it. They had to allow it to rot and decay because they did not have any idea how important those things were to the economy of our country. Kuffour spent 8 years selling Ghana Telecom and where did the proceed go?
The NDC and the NPP are toying with Ghana's secondary school system: 3 years for NDC, 4 years for NPP meanwhile they are sending their children to be educated abroad leaving Ghanaians to suffer from their selfish and ill conceived policies.
Will NPP's Alan Kyeremanteng and Akuffo Addo save Ghana? I don't think so. Because they are part of the same wagon that has not deliver to Ghanaians. Can Mills save Ghana? Well his style of governance shows that unemployment and many of the woes he came to meet will worsen. He has not shown any clear policy direction as what he wants to do or achieve for Ghana.
We have been mining gold for decades yet Ghanaians cannot even buy products made from gold. We have been selling gold at the international gold market for decades and ordinary Ghanaians do not know where the money goes. No one in Ghana except the corrupt NDC and their equally corrupt NPP rivals who know where the proceeds go. Now they are happy that we have discovered oil and are seriously strategising to steal so Ghanaians will continue to live in poverty again.
If Ghana is going to be a nation for all its people then the is the need for a leadership that will aggressively implement policies and programmes that will transform the nation from its current economic predicament. A leadership that will mobilize all the resources in the country to develop Ghana for all its citizens to benefit.
Ghanaians sit up and beware of who you vote for in 2012.
Credit: Lord Aikins Adusei
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