COMMENT: Empowering Disadvantaged Ghanaians

Driving through the city of Accra yesterday, I was struck by the sense of optimism in the air. It was palpable.

Far from being in despair, as the doomsayers in our midst insist, it occurred to me that on the whole, Ghanaians are indeed a happy people - many full of hope about their future prospects.

Despite the buffeting the economy is experiencing, with an escalating budget deficit caused largely by a ballooning public-sector wage bill, middle class Ghanaians are prospering - and the evidence is in the amazing buildings springing up all over Accra; the many shops selling a cornucopia of expensive consumer items found in the best shops in Europe, Asia and the USA and Canada, etc; and the many new cars and SUV's one sees on our traffic-choked roads.

Clearly, one part of the nation is doing well, whilst those they are leaving behind need to be given a helping hand, to lift themselves out of poverty by their own bootstraps.

We need not however wring our hands in despair about the plight of the disadvantaged. Something positive can done to give more of them a helping hand - and give them a fighting chance to succeed.

To enable the government to empower the millions of disadvantaged Ghanaians - particularly the rural poor - keen to escape from the poverty trap, initiatives like the Local Enterprises Skills Development Programme (LESDEP), and the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), must be fine-tuned and made more accessible to people at the grassroots-level nationwide.

In addition to the taxi cabs being provided by the GYEEDA on a "work-and-pay" instalment basis, for example, mini-buses must also be provided on the same terms - with a small profit margin added to the total amount to be repaid by beneficiaries - to pay for insurance against defaulting, and to support that particular GYEEDA initiative.

Naturally, satellite tracking of all vehicles provided beneficiaries by GYEEDA is vital - and ought be made possible.

To make such schemes financially sustainable, it would help if all those who want to take part in the LESDEP and GYEEDA initiatives, were made to buy a special lottery ticket, which would automatically qualify them to participate in those initiatives.

The money raised by the National Lotteries Authority (NLA) in that special lottery, would help augment the money provided LESDEP and GYEEDA by taxpayers.

Better management that rids the initiatives of the alleged corruption bedevelling them, would also make more funds available to expand those initiatives right across the nation.

President Mahama says he wants to make Ghana a land of opportunities for its people.

Yet another way to create opportunities for SME's in Ghana's furniture industry, for example, is to implement the brilliant idea by a member of the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) communications team - Mr. Fred Agbenu - that government ministries, departments and agencies ought to be obliged to buy only made in Ghana furniture.

The government ought to bring a bill before Parliament so that that brilliant idea can be passed into law.

That will create jobs and help furniture makers in Ghana to grow and prosper - if implemented by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime of President Mahama.

Above all, to enable the government to have the wherewithal to fund such empowerment initiatives, in addition to cutting down on wasteful expenditure in the public sector, President Mahama's government must do all it can to plug the loopholes that enable corrupt individuals to siphon off taxpayers' money.

New legislation that financially rewards those who provide information about the theft of public funds, which leads to the prosecution and conviction of those found guilty of corruption by the law courts, ought to be brought before Parliament too, and passed quickly.

It will help expose the many crooked schemes devised by sundry rogues and nation-wreckers engaged in corruption, which makes it possible for the dishonest to milk Mother Ghana dry.

That is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that the public purse is protected by the citizenry.

Finally, to help us transition to a low-emission development model - and as part of a forest climate services partnership between Ghana and Norway (and other Scandinavian nations), wealth could be created in rural Ghana, by protecting existing forests and through agro-forestry initiatives.

A similar partnership between Guyana and Norway, in which Guyana actively protects its forests to mitigate the impact of global climate change, has earned Guyana about some US$115 millions thus far. It is money that could dramatically transform rural Ghana

As part of such a low carbon development agenda, for example, rural cooperatives could be formed to rehabilitate land destroyed by illegal mining - by growing jetropha trees on them to produce bio-diesel.

Through lateral thinking on the part of our leaders, it is indeed possible for the Ghanaian nation-state to play its part, in empowering the disadvantaged in Ghana.

Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com.