My take on the President's State of the Nation Address

Yesterday, President Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo presented The State of the Nation Address in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution on Thursday, 8th February, 2018.

In that address, President Nana Addo through his presentation, he demonstrated clearly what he has done to enhance the welfare and wellbeing of the people of Ghana. Through this approach he demonstrated that the mandate bestowed on him in 2016 by the sovereign people of Ghana has been well utilised to bring significant improvements in almost all aspects of our national life.

President Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo offered incontrovertible proof that in sectors such as education, health, economy, power, water, housing, roads, transport, communications and governance, tremendous progress had been made; since he assumed office as the elected President of Ghana on January 7, 2017.

The President in accounting to the good people of Ghana on his first one year stewardship also touched on existing challenges. He indicated clearly that more remains to be done to achieve the ultimate objective of attaining full development for our country and the promises he made to Ghanaians during his campaign trail. He never claimed to have turned Ghana into Paradise within his year in office. More things are yet to come, but is a matter of time.

To the NDC, President Nana Addo has all the resources and ‘more than 24 hours in a day’ to have resolved all the challenges of our great republic, the country they took eight years to destroy instead building it to the expectable standard. This mindset can best be described as “making perfect the enemy of better.” You don't expect president Nana Addo to used one year to fix something you took eight years to destroy. Thank God Nana Addo is restoring the lost hope and building confidence on both local and foreign investors, indeed Ghana is working again.

President Nana Addo in his State Of The Address said he has set aside GH¢800m to help equipped our security. security agencies have over the years been equipped by successive leaders including the current regime but there is still more room for improvement. Modern Policing has advanced so much that the use of brute force is no longer ideal for Modern Policing, the training of our Police officers would have to be looked at again; the various training facilities for training our police officers must be properly be equipped; just a simple visit to any Police station in Ghana would tell you the actual state of Policing in the country.

This situation is not very different from the Ghana National fire service, Immigration Service, forestry, Customs Division of the GRA, Prisons Service, ETC, even though one admits there has been some significant improvement in the supply of fire tenders for the GNSF.

The Increase in Police-Population ratio is very good as it’s getting close to the UN standard of 1:500 but the issue is how many police men do we see in our neighborhood? The Financial institutions in this country have not helped the security Challenges the civil population faces everyday. They take majority of police personnel to guard their premises and guard the movement of money from one location to the other, this reduces the number of personnel available. So even though the ratio has increased the number available for public Policing is still not enough. We need to recruit more police into system as promise by the then candidate Nana Addo of bridging the gab of the remaining 23,000 police.

It may be true that crimes have reduced but the reality is that not all crimes are reported. So the statistics on paper looks right but the reality is that most crimes in Ghana including rape, assault, road accidents etc. are not reported, most people turn to rather resolve criminals issues amicably instead of reporting to the relevant authorities. The amount of time and money spent following up on reported cases is a disincentive and the least talk about the judicial service the better in tackling crime. President Nana Addo, we need to see more improvement in the security sector after promising to sink more resources to equip our security forces. Thank you