Politicians failed to support indigenous businesses

Mr Herbert Mensah, Former Chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko, one of Ghana’s biggest football clubs, said unlike other countries, politicians in Ghana and Africa in general had failed to support indigenous businesses.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, he said; “Many of our politicians have failed to support indigenous businesses in the way many other countries around the world have.”

Mr Mensah said due to the four-year political cycle, many businesses had suffered with changes in political players and powers and called on the need for business magnates to plan in accordance with the possibility of political change.

He said although this phenomenon was a major threat to development, he was confident that the next generation would bring about the needed change with less ethnocentric attitude.

Mr Mensah said Ghana and the entire African Continent needed strong leaders with the right values and attitudes towards public servitude to run the affairs of the nation stressing that until this was achieved, the challenges of the poor, unacceptable attitude towards public service and a general lack of accountability would still continue.

He said although he believed in self-motivation, it would take individual leadership to motivate the conscience of others.

Mr Mensah said acknowledging the fact that the African Continent had, over the years, received disproportionate amount of negative reportage, which had blinded many to the beauty of the people and the continent, Africa had not marketed herself well in terms of the global perception.

“The old perception about the continent remains, when in reality many European countries are now the ‘beggars’. We have many great Africans and rapidly growing African nations,” he said.

According to him, the African continent was the future for investments citing the different choices such as culture, language, location, religion and stability as examples.

Mr Mensah said he still provided educational support for the families and victims of the May 9 stadium disaster which happened 12 years ago claiming 127 lives.

Asked why he still commemorated the tragic event, he said “many people died needlessly, children lost their parents, spouses lost their breadwinners, a nation lost its children, and I am determined that they should not have died in vain”.