President Atta-Mills’ Administrative Comics

At times I wonder whether this great nation of ours, is indeed, in the hands of the so called competent group of people who promised to steer the affairs of Ghana in the ‘right’ direction. I have always maintained the view, since the assumption of the Atta-Mills administration, that the kinds of promises made to Ghanaians by the NDC during the 2008 electioneering campaign were just like the recent earthquake scare; hoaxes!!!.

The NDC, led by the then candidate Atta Mills was bent on winning political power with the sole purpose of being able to stop the downward spiral of their personal economic fortunes. This diabolic plan was utilized to the fullest, by the NDC during the 2008 general elections, by way of their weekly ‘setting the records straight’ tales of lies.

And as a result of the shambolic nature of the NPP’s communication machinery, at the time, Ghanaians unfortunately turned to believe those NDC lies and saw the NPP government as being responsible for their woes, irrespective of the novelties as the NHIS,NYEP,school feeding, free anti-natal care, LEAP and so on. Propaganda is said to be a tool that opposition parties normally use to virtually throw dust into the eyes of the citizenry in order to win their votes during elections. But the NDC, after winning power, is still neck-deep in useless propaganda, forgetting that it is the duty of a ruling government not to engage in administrative comics, but rather, deliver on its campaign promises. Taking this case scenario outside our boarders was the case of President William Jefferson Clinton (Bill Clinton) of the United States of America. President Clinton grew the American economy to extend where there was so much surplus that Americans could stare into the cameras of CNN, during a live television broadcast, and proclaim to the world that “America has never had it so good!!!” Those were the days Americans could comfortably enjoy what was then commonly termed as the ‘driving season’. This was during summer seasons when people could drive over long distances to visit families in other states or to embark on their annual vacation. Americans chose to undertake those trips by road, instead flying, because it afforded them the opportunity to enjoy the countryside scenery. This was because, the Clinton administration created more jobs than it was needed by American citizens and the price of fuel was also at its lowest in decades.

This not withstanding, the Republican Party, through lies and electoral fraud (the Florida debacle), managed to steal power from Al Gore (Bill Clinton’s vice). And today, we are all witnesses to the results of the 8-yr rule of George Walker Bush Jr. Inspite of this, there has never been an instance, since Obama became the president of America, where he (Obama) has stood before the people of America and told them he could not do this or that, because he inherited a shattered economy and two major wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) from his predecessor.

As a matter of fact, Barrack Obama, after being sworn into office as the president, looked into the face of Americans and declared to them that “I have inherited the worse crisis in the U.S. financial history but it is my duty to clean it up”. And according to the latest figures, the U.S. economy is officially out of recession and all the banks/other institutions that were bailed out of their financial distress have paid off their debts.

There has also been a landmark policy reform in the area of health-care (this might suffer a jolt following the loss of the Massachusetts senate seat) which is said to be most comprehensively aggressive in U.S. history since the introduction of the “BILL OF RIGHTS”. Inspite of all these, Americans still don’t seem to be satisfied with Obama’s performance after 1-yr in office.

But here in Ghana, after nearly 1½ years of NDC governance under a visionless stewardship of president Mills(the Atta has now been dropped), it has all been excuses about how the NDC came to meet ‘empty’ coffers and a ‘shattered’ economy and therefore must be given internity to find their intensely-wobbly feet. There has been absolutely no policy direction in any sector of our national economy, after one solid year of bogus ‘better Ghana’ sloganeering.

The good people of this country, have rather, been subjected to only these monotonous spectacle of the President’s sporadic unrewarding trips around the country just to repeat the same doomed-to-failure promises he made to the people of Ghana during the 2008 electioneering campaign, and, sing his now too familiar song of “being saddled with burden of having to pay other people’s contract debts”.

The derisory edict by the president to all parastatals to switch off all television sets in their offices, in order to boost workers’ efficiency, is a classic case of a president who has fallen into a very deep visionary-stupor and has therefore resorted to taking spurious decisions. Samuel Okudzato-Ablakwa was also heard on BBC saying that Civil Servants can be allowed to watch TV for 1-hour during ‘break-time’. The question is what measures have been put in place to ensure that such a ‘lame-duck’ directive is adhered to?

This television viewing embargo, coupled with the ministers’ boarding of ‘trotro’ vehicles on ‘world transport day’ and squatting on KVIP’s in Nima on ‘world toilet day’, are acts, that I will term as comical administrative shadow-boxing by a group of incompetent greedy-bastards who have woefully failed to deliver on their copious illusionist campaign promises. Hannah Bissue (a veterinary doctor) and her followers went to squat on KVIP’s in Nima and after one full year into their mirage of a better Ghana agenda, the good people of Nima are still queuing at public toilets to attend nature’s call. Joe Gidisu was on-board a ‘trotro’ vehicle from somewhere in Medina to his office at the ministries on world transport day, during which he (Joe Gidisu) sweated like a pregnant fish and panted like a London marathon runner. Yet, the poor workers of this nation still spend hours un-end at lorry stations at nights, just to catch ‘trotro’ home after a hard day’s work.

Please, Mr. President, the good people of this nation who are already reeling under the current harsh economic effects of your deep administrative stupor, must be spared these comical ‘kamikaze’ antics disguised as well-intended sacrifices, by you and your team-B appointees and just get on with the business of delivering on your inexplicable ‘better Ghana agenda’. A president who openly condones infidelity in marriage, telling the good people of this nation to “spare him of sanctimonious effusions”? This, indeed, is nothing, but, hypocrisy at its best.

The NDC, led by the then candidate Mills likened the NPP policy of property owning democracy, to the ‘bird-flu pandemic’ which had to be avoided by any individual who values life. But today, president Mills says he is building a house on a peace of land bequeathed to him by his late father. Is that land bequeathed to the president not a property acquired by his father? Is the house now being built on the said land by president Mills not a property?

Alex Segbefia says he lives in a house built by his father. Is this house not a property acquired by his father? Alex is currently renovating this said house with ‘billions’ of cedis to befit his current status. This will ultimately add to the value of this property bequeathed to him (Alex) by his father.

Now, if the fathers of these pseudo-democrats have had the foresight and worked hard in order to acquire these properties, which have been bequeathed to their children who are, today, developing these properties instead of being confronted with the challenges of having to start from scratch, then where lies the sincerity of such double-faced greedy bastards when they describe a concept of property owning as evil?

Ghanaians must be spared such useless communist inferior tactics by people who continuously espouse the virtues of places like North Korea, Cuba, Vladivostok, ‘Kosmochaea’, Chechnya and so on, when at the same time, these same people are battling with chronic addiction to 4-wheel drives, Benz cars (Wabenzies), ‘Heavenly’ mansions and educating their children in capitalist countries as Britain, America and Canada. We have been ordered not to watch TV in our offices so that we can be able to mobilize some resources, by working hard, to replenish the much touted ‘depleted’ national coffers.Yet,a plane-load of people were ‘whimsically’ and ‘capriciously’ selected to embark on another useless jolly-ride to Angola at the expense of the state. Are we serious in this country?

Here, I would like to take this opportunity to commend Kenneth Agyei-kuranchie (Daily searchlight) and Adakabre Frimpong-Manso (Hot-fm), for not allowing themselves to be used as a façade to legitimize such an economic crime against the good people of this nation.

As for those NPP-MP’s who were on the trip, my only question for them is simply this; if your government is being accused of bequeathing such a shattered economy and empty coffers to the Atta-Mills administration, then why did you have to be part of such a wasteful adventure? Does the NPP expect to win power in 2012 by colluding with the NDC to engage in such (as in the words of Atta-Mills), ‘profligate expenditures’?

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com