Selfish politicians, coup d’etats bane of development - Kofi Asamoah
The General Secretary of the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), Mr Kofi Asamoah, has blamed Ghana’s economic situation, 56 years after independence, on selfish politicians and coup d’états.
According to him, close to 25 years of the country’s existence spent in military rule, the disruptions in continuity had affected the country’s economic growth tremendously.
“If we allow the current process to go on, in spite of all the challenges and weakness would bring us more benefit than our experiences with the military,” he said in an interview with the Daily Graphic concerning the country’s 56th independence anniversary celebrations yesterday.
Ghana joined the league of independent countries on March 6, 1957, exactly 133 years after the Bond of 1844.
The Bond was the British government’s commitment to regularising its jurisdiction over the coastal states. To that end, Commander H. Worsley Hill,the first Governor of the Gold Coast, signed a bond in 1844 with a number of chiefs.
However, after years of a protracted battle with nationalist movement, the British handed over the administration of the country to Ghanaians under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the then Prime Minister who later became Ghana’s first President.
Dr Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 by the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police, with the support of foreign interest.
Since then, the country experienced six coup d’états in 1966, 1972, 1978, twice in 1979 and then 1981.
That, Mr Asamoah said, had been partially responsible for the country’s snail-paced development.
“From 1992 till now, a lot has changed in Ghana. The 30 years of lack of accountability because of the military dictatorships and lack of proper direction were contributing factors to our current state of affairs,” he said
He continued, “in a democratic era criticism of government policies sometimes ensures that policy makers change some policy outline and direction.
According to him, the pace at which the country started its development was slowed down by selfish politicians and coup makers.
“If we could build dams at the time of our independent, and have engineers who participated, at 56, one would have expected that Ghana should be building dams for other countries,” he stated.
“If we were able to plan our cities and had constant supply of utilities—water and electricity at the time, with the right kind of leadership and taking into consideration our growth and population, we should have been able to sustain that kind of economic progress.”
He observed that at the time of the country’s independence, it had the best educational system in West Africa and gave “the best education to our students who are now in charge of the management of our affairs.”
“One would have expected that our current crop of leaders, having experienced that, transfers the same legacy to the present generation. But as it is now, the development of human resources of this country is far from being developed.”
“We have not given much attention to human resource development, but rather have concentrated on the extraction of mineral resources at the expense human resource development—a key component of the global economy today,” he said.
He observed that no country developed without a proper identification of its inhabitants, adding that Ghana had not done well enough in that regard.
He said even though the initial investment in the national identification initiative was not bearing any fruit, the leadership of the country had been quite about it and not committing themselves to making the project work.
“We have a 10 million workforce and 60 per cent of our entire revenue goes to about 500,000 of this workforce. Out of the 10 million, 20 per cent are contributing in terms of taxes, why don’t we put in measures to rope in the entire 10 million workforce?,” he asked
“If 20 per cent of the 10 million is able to sustain 500,000 people, the you can imagine the potential of 10 million workforce contributing to the national purse,” he stated.
Making a case for an efficient national identification, he said “If everybody has identification and we know where everybody is hiding, crime would reduce; the Electoral Commission would not have to spend $100 million every four years on biometric register”.
“Just one investment in one area in national identification would solve our problems. This bold initiative and political commitment to do that is the way forward. If we are willing to commit ourselves to it, Ghana would benefit and not political parties,” he added.
According to him, Ghana had become a nation of quick fixes. “Everything else is caused by leadership. All our leaders--- political, business and media find quick fix solutions to problems without looking beyond the immediate---If it is electricity, they get generators; if it is water they get polytank.”
“While we supply this things from a selfish point of view, why don’t they look at the national picture and insist that it should be done for everybody else instead of spending huge sums of money on quick solutions that benefit only a few?”
He said leadership was key to the development of every country adding that Ghana could join the league of economically independent countries only if leaders should stopped the partisanship and focus on doing this in the interest of this country.
He said while the citizenry would be bearing the brunt of an ineffective leadership, national crisis did not know political colours.
According to him, close to 25 years of the country’s existence spent in military rule, the disruptions in continuity had affected the country’s economic growth tremendously.
“If we allow the current process to go on, in spite of all the challenges and weakness would bring us more benefit than our experiences with the military,” he said in an interview with the Daily Graphic concerning the country’s 56th independence anniversary celebrations yesterday.
Ghana joined the league of independent countries on March 6, 1957, exactly 133 years after the Bond of 1844.
The Bond was the British government’s commitment to regularising its jurisdiction over the coastal states. To that end, Commander H. Worsley Hill,the first Governor of the Gold Coast, signed a bond in 1844 with a number of chiefs.
However, after years of a protracted battle with nationalist movement, the British handed over the administration of the country to Ghanaians under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the then Prime Minister who later became Ghana’s first President.
Dr Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 by the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police, with the support of foreign interest.
Since then, the country experienced six coup d’états in 1966, 1972, 1978, twice in 1979 and then 1981.
That, Mr Asamoah said, had been partially responsible for the country’s snail-paced development.
“From 1992 till now, a lot has changed in Ghana. The 30 years of lack of accountability because of the military dictatorships and lack of proper direction were contributing factors to our current state of affairs,” he said
He continued, “in a democratic era criticism of government policies sometimes ensures that policy makers change some policy outline and direction.
According to him, the pace at which the country started its development was slowed down by selfish politicians and coup makers.
“If we could build dams at the time of our independent, and have engineers who participated, at 56, one would have expected that Ghana should be building dams for other countries,” he stated.
“If we were able to plan our cities and had constant supply of utilities—water and electricity at the time, with the right kind of leadership and taking into consideration our growth and population, we should have been able to sustain that kind of economic progress.”
He observed that at the time of the country’s independence, it had the best educational system in West Africa and gave “the best education to our students who are now in charge of the management of our affairs.”
“One would have expected that our current crop of leaders, having experienced that, transfers the same legacy to the present generation. But as it is now, the development of human resources of this country is far from being developed.”
“We have not given much attention to human resource development, but rather have concentrated on the extraction of mineral resources at the expense human resource development—a key component of the global economy today,” he said.
He observed that no country developed without a proper identification of its inhabitants, adding that Ghana had not done well enough in that regard.
He said even though the initial investment in the national identification initiative was not bearing any fruit, the leadership of the country had been quite about it and not committing themselves to making the project work.
“We have a 10 million workforce and 60 per cent of our entire revenue goes to about 500,000 of this workforce. Out of the 10 million, 20 per cent are contributing in terms of taxes, why don’t we put in measures to rope in the entire 10 million workforce?,” he asked
“If 20 per cent of the 10 million is able to sustain 500,000 people, the you can imagine the potential of 10 million workforce contributing to the national purse,” he stated.
Making a case for an efficient national identification, he said “If everybody has identification and we know where everybody is hiding, crime would reduce; the Electoral Commission would not have to spend $100 million every four years on biometric register”.
“Just one investment in one area in national identification would solve our problems. This bold initiative and political commitment to do that is the way forward. If we are willing to commit ourselves to it, Ghana would benefit and not political parties,” he added.
According to him, Ghana had become a nation of quick fixes. “Everything else is caused by leadership. All our leaders--- political, business and media find quick fix solutions to problems without looking beyond the immediate---If it is electricity, they get generators; if it is water they get polytank.”
“While we supply this things from a selfish point of view, why don’t they look at the national picture and insist that it should be done for everybody else instead of spending huge sums of money on quick solutions that benefit only a few?”
He said leadership was key to the development of every country adding that Ghana could join the league of economically independent countries only if leaders should stopped the partisanship and focus on doing this in the interest of this country.
He said while the citizenry would be bearing the brunt of an ineffective leadership, national crisis did not know political colours.
Comments
Post a Comment