Don’t neglect the poor; they’ve sacrificed a lot for you - Ace Ankomah to middle class

Renowned Legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah has chastised some high profile personalities in Ghana for being ungrateful to a section of the public he describes as their ‘servants’ and less privileged who laid the bedrock for their success.

The legal brain delivering a lecture at the 3rd Annual Public Lecture of the Rotary Club of Ghana on Tuesday, February 14 alleged that, some industry players and individuals of various professional backgrounds through their self-enriching lifestyles have contributed to the rot and snail-growth of the economy while robbing others of their entitlements in the process.

“This must be the only country on earth where we pay money to educate doctors and the day after they finish they decide that this country is too awful and so they leave. And when people are admitted to study MBA they are still on government subvention, where on earth will you get MBA on government support. This must be a great country.

“It means that as many of us who have been through public secondary and university training, your cousin in the village who could not make it, the fisher folk who sit by the road when you drive through the central region and the farmers whose children never benefited from the cocoa scholarships actually looked after you, so you cannot give the credit of your education to just your parents but the people who did not get the opportunity actually looked after you,” he lamented.

Mr. Ankomah said the underprivileged struggle to put food on the tables of the rich and to a greater extent contribute to securing them the various positions they occupy in society but when the table is set they are given the backseat.

He argued that there’s the need for the favour to be reciprocated for the individuals who made the outnumbering sacrifices feel fulfilled. His fear however is the glaring effect the blacklisting of these ‘servants’ will bring if their hard work is not compensated.

“Guess what, you are what you are because of what they are not. That means that there’s a certain burden, there’s a certain charge that the people whose monies looked after you deserve a return from you. I’m not saying walk around the streets and distribute money but when their monies have looked after you and you are seated where you are seated but think nothing about them you have betrayed them.”

“And I don’t mean to scare you but I sometimes think that one day the poor in Ghana will have nothing to eat but the rich because the middle class who were looked after with the taxpayer money have checked out of Ghana.”