Rawlings statement on June 4

STATEMENT BY H.E. JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS ON THE OCCASION OF THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE JUNE 4 UPRISING – JUNE 4, 2014 

Countrymen and countrywomen, brothers and sisters: -


Another anniversary of June 4th, and we are forced to reflect on where we have reached 35 years on. Are we proud of what we have achieved?


It is said that Ghana’s economic growth in recent years has been impressive. Indeed it has won plaudits across the world. A year or two ago, as our precious oil finds began to yield their first fruits, Ghana, with 13 per cent GDP growth, was even touted as the fastest growing economy in the world.   Recently too, we have been told that Ghana is one of the few countries that has succeeded ahead of time to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. 


So why is it that on the ground and in the communities, people do not feel that they are any better off? Why do they feel instead that things have gone from bad to worse?


There are two issues I would have liked to focus my attention on. The first is a local issue and the second issue is global.


The lack of true democratic practice in the unipolar world is a matter of serious concern. How can we say that the global system is democratic when there is only one voice advocating that things be done its way? But I will defer that discussion to another occasion. 


The local issue I am going to speak about today will not come as a surprise to anyone. It is the issue that I am known for. It is the issue that June 4th is known for. It is the issue of corruption. We all know that corruption is killing us, so why do we tolerate it? Why do we allow the amassers of illegally obtained wealth to thrive in our society? Why do we look up to them and even hail them? Is it possible that some of us hope that some of their ill-gotten wealth will trickle down to us in some way? But it cannot. It will not.


Corruption hurts us because it takes out of the public purse scarce resources that could be used to turn our economy into an engine for sustained growth. 

Corruption hurts us because it siphons out of the economy the substantial investment that is needed in the social sector to pay the salaries of doctors, nurses and teachers, build more and better schools and hospitals, and create the physical infrastructure needed to take our nation to a greater level of human and economic development.


And finally, corruption hurts us because it is destroying the moral fibre of our nation. That was the message of June 4th 1979. The attack on the moral fibre of Ghanaians was what led to the popular uprising of June 4th. 


So widespread was the identification with this moral outrage that Ghanaians from all walks of life came out spontaneously to support the revolution.


People filled the streets. People cried for retribution. People mobilised to get the economy working again after a lost decade in which corruption had become the order of the day and the country ground to a halt.


But alarmingly today, the scale of blatant corruption is far in excess of what we witnessed in those days.


Meanwhile, the galloping increase in prices, especially food prices, almost on a fortnightly basis, brings back memories of the situation we all decried as kalabule. Kalabule came about because traders hoarded food and then profited from food shortages to push prices beyond the reach of ordinary people.


Today there are no shortages. Food is plentiful. Yet the desperation that the sustained rise in food prices is creating has resulted in a situation where cheating is becoming the order of the day.


Today the cedi is under pressure because of high demand for imports. But even local foodstuffs are selling at prices that bear no relationship to what ordinary men and women have in their pocket. But let me come to the issue of the cedi in a moment.

Again we seem to be staring in the face of a mounting crisis and desperation is pushing people towards the brink.


Today many have difficulty affording a decent meal because of the escalating cost of food. A decent meal costs about 7 new cedis and 70,000 old cedis. This definitely must seem like a price too high to pay for a family meal. 


As prices go up beyond what is bearable, people are again scrutinising how their leaders live and what kinds of deals they are making.


Ghana’s greatest and most unfortunate nightmare is the almost total breakdown of discipline and in several instances law and order at most sectors of our society. Gross indiscipline and greed is what has manifested into heightened corruption, a total lack of integrity and the mountains of filth and rubbish strewn across our communities. 


If we were to use the yardstick of June 4 1979, a lot more people would be paying a bigger price. The rage of the country then exacted a high price from corrupters. So how is it now that we are back in that dark tunnel, but with levels of corruption that we could never have imagined in those days?


The sacrilege we committed was that the NDC abandoned the altar of its high moral standing, abandoned the altar of service to God and man and some decided to eat off the table that Kufuor left behind.


I have said over and over again that Kufuor is responsible for setting in motion the moral and economic crisis that we are experiencing today, and I will say it again today. The investigation that Mills should have initiated never took place. But today let me give one very visible and concrete example of Kufuor’s mismanagement that we are all feeling the effects of.


When Kufuor’s government removed four noughts from the cedi, he overnight abolished the people’s economy. He abolished the people’s economy because he abolished the means to exchange goods below the value of 1,000 old cedis.

No wonder they say we halved poverty ahead of the Millennium Goal target of 2015. In Ghana we halved poverty by abolishing four noughts off the cedi and effectively forcing everyone to live above a dollar a day, which is the global measure of poverty. Overnight 10,000 cedis became one cedi or the equivalent of one dollar and 1,000 cedis, which was good money in 2000, became one pesewa, and was no longer considered to have any value.


So now, when the new cedis were introduced, what happened to the old cedis? Did the Kufuor government destroy them as was necessary to rein in inflation? Why did the new cedi so quickly lose its value? Did Kufuor give us any account of what happened to the stash of old cedis?


Then if he failed to account for something as concrete as the disposal of the old cedi, imagine the litany of corrupt dealings that people can only whisper about because no full investigation has been conducted.


Unfortunately, advice and constructive criticism offered since 2009 have been misinterpreted as if Jerry Rawlings wanted to run the party or government. The lack of advice, the loss of direction, have led us to where we are today. 


Where are the men and women of integrity in the NPP and why have they gone silentvabout some of these obvious violations of their era. What are they afraid off? How can they be a viable opposition if they cannot confront the rot their party left behind as a basis of repairing their party’s image?


Corruption should always be investigated because it is against the interests of the people of this beautiful nation, Ghana. The aspiring revolutions of June 4th and December 31st were in the interest of the people of Ghana and as much as we regret some of the revolutionary excesses arising from the people’s rage or the heavy price corrupters were made to pay, these were a direct consequence and reflection of the people’s anger at the level of political and economic depravity at the time.


The danger is that as it becomes more and more difficult to contain the growing corruption and to stop the rot, moral outrage will face two options. Give way to cynicism, pessimism, acceptance and an irreparably corrupt order. Or erupt.


Fellow countrymen and countrywomen, as we reflect on the journey we have travelled since June 4th 1979, let us renew our commitment to truth, probity and accountability.                    

Let us believe that people’s power is still an important ingredient in the democracy we aspire to.


Let us demand that democracy should not be an empty and expensive changing of the guards every four years between corrupted parties or governments, but a genuine system for empowering citizens and uplifting their lives. 


Empowering citizens, means giving them a genuine role to play in the governance of this country. These were the values that we stood for in 1979 and that the June 4th anniversary seeks to rekindle – The strong spirit of integrity and the ability to defy that which is wrong!


Fellow countrymen and women, brothers and sisters, it is you who continue to keep that spirit alive.