THE BEST INTEREST OF GHANA IN LIMBO?
There is a saying that everyone dies but not everyone really lives. There is a country called Ghana wherein the process of governance, the equivalent happens. In Ghana, everyone talks because they hold views and there is freedom of speech but not everyone acts even though there is freedom for that as well. In every single interview or governance conversation that goes on in the media space in this country is one commonality and that is the fact that the leaders are not doing enough to propel the country to the zenith of development. But is it really the fault of our leaders or is it our collective fault?
Now, yesterday I was in a conversation with Razak Musbau, the host of Morning Dew, the morning show of radio GIJ. As usual, I bombarded him with a lot of questions about governance and politics. The ideas he shared with me yesterday though there are a few variations are no different from any of the views I have heard and read in the media space.
In my article titled Ghana’s Politics; the two-party state of a camouflage multi-party democracy, I argued that we need just more than the dominance of two political parties to ensure the strengthening of our democratic credentials and rapid development. But Razak holds a different view. He thinks the best men and women Ghana needs to ensure its development are the very people who populate the National Democratic Congress, NDC and the New Patriotic Party, NPP.
He cites examples like Ms Hannah Serwaa Tetteh who played an active role in Ghana’s politics as a member of parliament and minister of state. After her party the NDC went into opposition, she has taken an international role with the United Nations. If she didn’t have the capacity and competence to deliver on her mandates, she wouldn’t get the opportunity to serve internationally, no? Several members of the various political parties have served on international corporations and most of them excelled there so why can’t they develop this country on a faster pace?
This argument feeds into the fact that we politicize everything that goes on in this country and that is a factor of our retarded growth over the past years. What in this country has ever been done without political colouration?
So if indeed we have the best men and women in the political arena to ensure the development of this country, then what is holding them back? Why aren’t they doing their best or is this the best they can do? If we want to attribute their seeming ineptitude to over-politicization, then what about the non-political class too? Those who serve on the boards of state-owned organizations and companies, or have they also been compromised in our wake to rid ourselves of steady progress?
It has long been argued over time that Ghana needs a binding long-term national plan that will guide the policies of political parties and yet where is that plan? In whose capacity does it rest to ensure that this argument comes to fruition?
The media space is now full of complaints from complainants. Both the leaders and the ordinary citizens are complaining. I listen as leaders of this country whine about issues as though they were not elected based on their promises to fix those very issues.
Everybody appears to know the right things in this country. Civil society organizations in this country like the politicians are always talking. There is always the talk about citizen empowerment but nothing is done about it? How many times have the terms of a loan agreement been explained to the ordinary citizen before the agreement is signed?
We know the level of illiteracy rate in this country yet almost every speech is delivered in the English Language, why? Yes, English Language is our official language but should that put a barrier between our leaders and the ordinary citizens they serve?
How many forums have been organized to educate the ordinary citizen on the 1992 constitution of Ghana that we all live according to, in their very local languages? How many times have citizens been educated on government policies apart from propaganda commentaries on radio and television? Yes, the media is used to reach out to thousands of people but come to the local level so that the people can ask you questions for their concerns to be addressed.
In every orderly setting, there is the ruler and there is the ruled. The ruler is the servant and the ruled is superior but it becomes the other way round when the ruled lacks knowledge in matters relating to rulership.
Believe me, our leaders know that educating the public and empowering the ordinary citizen will put the jobs of the leaders at risk because they can’t get away with some of the many things they engage in. Empowering the ordinary citizen means the leaders can’t get away with corruption, greed, incompetence, negligence, and the likes of it. For this reason, they only do lip service to the course of citizen empowerment.
It does appear that the best our leaders have done has always been to present big visions to the ordinary man without any well thought through concrete plans underpinning those visions, buy their way through elections, engage in ‘banal’ arguments, and do very little for four years and come back to the suffering ordinary citizen to seek for another four years of luxury off the sweat of the voter.
But for how long will we continue to be cruel and self-serving?
YUSSIF SCRIBES.
Now, yesterday I was in a conversation with Razak Musbau, the host of Morning Dew, the morning show of radio GIJ. As usual, I bombarded him with a lot of questions about governance and politics. The ideas he shared with me yesterday though there are a few variations are no different from any of the views I have heard and read in the media space.
In my article titled Ghana’s Politics; the two-party state of a camouflage multi-party democracy, I argued that we need just more than the dominance of two political parties to ensure the strengthening of our democratic credentials and rapid development. But Razak holds a different view. He thinks the best men and women Ghana needs to ensure its development are the very people who populate the National Democratic Congress, NDC and the New Patriotic Party, NPP.
He cites examples like Ms Hannah Serwaa Tetteh who played an active role in Ghana’s politics as a member of parliament and minister of state. After her party the NDC went into opposition, she has taken an international role with the United Nations. If she didn’t have the capacity and competence to deliver on her mandates, she wouldn’t get the opportunity to serve internationally, no? Several members of the various political parties have served on international corporations and most of them excelled there so why can’t they develop this country on a faster pace?
This argument feeds into the fact that we politicize everything that goes on in this country and that is a factor of our retarded growth over the past years. What in this country has ever been done without political colouration?
So if indeed we have the best men and women in the political arena to ensure the development of this country, then what is holding them back? Why aren’t they doing their best or is this the best they can do? If we want to attribute their seeming ineptitude to over-politicization, then what about the non-political class too? Those who serve on the boards of state-owned organizations and companies, or have they also been compromised in our wake to rid ourselves of steady progress?
It has long been argued over time that Ghana needs a binding long-term national plan that will guide the policies of political parties and yet where is that plan? In whose capacity does it rest to ensure that this argument comes to fruition?
The media space is now full of complaints from complainants. Both the leaders and the ordinary citizens are complaining. I listen as leaders of this country whine about issues as though they were not elected based on their promises to fix those very issues.
Everybody appears to know the right things in this country. Civil society organizations in this country like the politicians are always talking. There is always the talk about citizen empowerment but nothing is done about it? How many times have the terms of a loan agreement been explained to the ordinary citizen before the agreement is signed?
We know the level of illiteracy rate in this country yet almost every speech is delivered in the English Language, why? Yes, English Language is our official language but should that put a barrier between our leaders and the ordinary citizens they serve?
How many forums have been organized to educate the ordinary citizen on the 1992 constitution of Ghana that we all live according to, in their very local languages? How many times have citizens been educated on government policies apart from propaganda commentaries on radio and television? Yes, the media is used to reach out to thousands of people but come to the local level so that the people can ask you questions for their concerns to be addressed.
In every orderly setting, there is the ruler and there is the ruled. The ruler is the servant and the ruled is superior but it becomes the other way round when the ruled lacks knowledge in matters relating to rulership.
Believe me, our leaders know that educating the public and empowering the ordinary citizen will put the jobs of the leaders at risk because they can’t get away with some of the many things they engage in. Empowering the ordinary citizen means the leaders can’t get away with corruption, greed, incompetence, negligence, and the likes of it. For this reason, they only do lip service to the course of citizen empowerment.
It does appear that the best our leaders have done has always been to present big visions to the ordinary man without any well thought through concrete plans underpinning those visions, buy their way through elections, engage in ‘banal’ arguments, and do very little for four years and come back to the suffering ordinary citizen to seek for another four years of luxury off the sweat of the voter.
But for how long will we continue to be cruel and self-serving?
YUSSIF SCRIBES.
Comments
Post a Comment