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Throughout Mother Ghana’s history as an Independent Country, an issue that keeps recurring troublingly is about how our assets are managed. Although some of our practices are clearly aberrational, we replicate them time and again, as epitomized by the media report on the Medical Center Project whose neglect and threatened abandonment, clearly potentially causing huge financial loss, went viral recently. The worst of Ghana’s regressive assets’- management practices, include: (1) acquisition of property by eminent domain and failing to use them for their intended purposes; (2) dissipation of national assets by giving them to cronies or selling them at pittance; and (3) leaving national edifices and highly costly projects to rot, presumably because they were initiated or launched by another Government or a rival political party. The Medical Center saga falls under the latter.
Clearly, these practices are intensely regressive, partially making us noticeably left behind or totally out of the race of becoming a serious competitor in the world, whether as place for residence, place for investment or business, or place for vacation. Just juxtapose Malaysia, Singapore, and Korea, etc, with which we were virtually at par, and the picture would be glaring.
Although the obvious misfocus and seemingly arrogant and unpatriotic nature of our practices have been major concerns over the years, we have persistently overlooked them. Nonetheless, the threats to the Media Center that seem to revisit the fates of all preceding otherwise laudable projects that failed and caused huge financial losses only because of our regressive political culture, infra, have provided an opportunity to raise awareness and sharpen our focus to help find ways to eradicate the regressive culture.
This article should be read apolitically, because, with the possible exception of our first post-independence government, virtually every government that the country has had, whether civilian or military, has been culpable, either as the initial neglector or as a subsequent Government that failed to correct the errors of its predecessors to avert further financial losses to the State.
The purposes of the article are to: (1) awaken and make “We, The People,” step up to make all our governments eschew the regressive practices, including by making them feel the pinch of not changing when election times come, and (2) push to have a law that requires successive governments to bring on-going projects to fruition, barring articulable credible reasons why they should not.
Although the issue is too basic to also merit Constitutional amendment, its is respectfully submitted that an amendment requiring all successive governments to complete pre-existing major projects is noble and worthwhile. Under the existing regressive practices, millions of dollars earmarked for projects meant to make us competitive, give us world class state-of-the-art facilities, modernize us and improve the lots of the country, are wasted, primarily and solely because of political rivalries. The magnitude of the attendant loss caused the state is too huge to allow the practices to continue. The Constitution, as the Fundamental law, would project all the seriousness required to stamp out those financial loss causing regressive practices. A poignant constitutional amendment should therefore be considered.
The article concentrates on the neglection of assets’ practices, leaving the eminent domain and assets’ dissipation practices as food for thought or for possible future discussion.
It is common knowledge that President Kwame Nkrumah, soon after our Independence, set the pace for decently rounded development, boldly taking multi-faceted giant strides to make our Independence meaningful. His clear goal was to rid us of vestiges of our past and of our vulnerable attributes that had made us a mere primary commodity producing country, easily susceptible to exploitation, manipulation, and classification as a third world country. To part with the concomitant colonial and neocolonial exploitative and subjugation culture, his Five- and Seven-Year Development Plans, took enviable steps, with GOOD MONEY, to make Ghana an industrial country producing exportable finished products. Among just a few of the numerous industries placed under his GIHOC, were the Volta Corned Beef factory, producing one of the best, if not the best, corned beef in the World. Now, where is it? Gone! We used our cocoa to produce the Golden Tree Chocolate, a product of world class quality that one felt proud of being a Ghanaian about. Where is it now? Gone! We had the equally promising Asutsuare and Komenda Sugar factories, which are also gone.
The whole industrialization spirit and foundations erected under GIHOC through hard-earned Ghana money and our God-given man and natural resources regrettably went south, principally due to changed governments which abandoned them, presumably for fear that the preceding government or another government would get credit if the projects are accomplished.
President Nkrumah’s Atomic Energy Program at Kwabenya was intended to serve many priceless purposes, including creating a nuclear plant for energy production, to supply sustainable power that would help obviate our dependency on other countries, enhance industrialization, and make Ghana an exporter of energy. The program had all the markings that would have got Ghana closer, if not farther, to where counties like Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia currently are, but for its abortion by the change of government and its concomitant political rivalry..
His silos project, also abandoned by the succeeding administration is also noteworthy. Appreciating that we were being taken advantage of by the “developed world” which dictated the prices of their finished products that gave them big profits while also setting the prices for our primary commodities at pittance, leaving little or no room for profit, he launched the silos storage program to inject some control. Specifically, his plan was that, in boom periods, Ghana could store much, release moderately, and keep prices from going low, thereby enabling Ghana to rake in meaningful profits. Fully funded by Ghanaian taxpayers, the plan was launched, as designed. Yet, the topplement of his government terminated it when the project was substantially completed, leaving the investments poured into it were to go to waste.
Many such troubling neglectful practices have resonated throughout our history, making one wonder why we kept missing the ball on the basic equation: use national assets wisely, prudently, and diligently, as fiduciaries, patriotically to advance the country.
Prime Minister Kofi Busia’s administration was short-lived, but it likewise initiated and launched some invaluable programs that would certainly have positively changed the fortunes and standards of living in Ghana, but for the neglectful practices in our political culture. A continuing big challenge to Ghana, especially its handling of sanitation, drainage, and hygiene, is inextricably inter-twined with its sewerage management. In the early 70’s, the Busia-Akufo Addo Government boldly launched a robust sewerage management program designed to create a world-class sewerage system for the Dear Country freely and graciously given to us. An aspect of Busia’s program required digging and installing a network of pipes to relay human waste into central processing plants. The unofficial name given to the digging phase was “walantu walansa”. Does it ring a bell? Where is the program now? Gone. How and why? By change of Government and abandonment, as usual, consistently with our culture.
What is even more lamentable is that, for nearly 50 years since the Busia Government was toppled, no single Government has revisited the program, even when our poor sewerage system has been seriously negatively impacting our health and our beaches, residential neighborhoods, play grounds, etc., turning them into . . . that need no discussion here.
Acheampong’s Operation Feed Yourself Program was another progressive project, fostering nationalism and Ghanaian dignified independence that got translated into financial and other losses to the State only because of the change of government. The program offered a lot, including encouraging and making us grow our own ford to feed ourselves. In addition, it instilled discipline in schools, work places, etc. Yet, notwithstanding all the resources and investment pumped into it, it got terminated with the change of Government.
The on-going Akufo-Addo-Bahumiah Administration is too young to afford an objective discussion of the regressive culture through its lenses. Nonetheless, the report on the ongoing neglect of the Medical Center Project makes it a relevant object of this article.
The program was initiated and launched by the Mahahma-Amissah-Arthur’s Government, reportedly costing taxpayers, at least, Two Hundred and Seventeen million dollars ($250,000,000). It is substantially completed, but frighteningly neglected. Although the report does not explicitly attribute the neglect to disinclination of the Akufo Addo-Bahumiah Government to continue with the project, the heated exchange between the Mahama Minister that launched it and brought it to partial completion and Akufo-Addo’s Minister currently in control, seems to pin the neglect to none other than the change in Government.
It is worrisome to see huge taxpayers money and blessed God-Given resources put to waste the way we have been handling them: The math just doesn’t add up!
The threats to the Medical Center Project should not materialize. Indeed, it should be the one straw that should not be allowed to hit the camel’s back. To that end, let’s appeal to the Government to take the necessary steps to redress any possible errors and neglects that might have taken place and firmly ensure the project is carried to completion. If it is done, it does not matter who started it and who completed it; it would be a win, win, for Ghana, all of us, and Mahama would be recorded in history as the Government which starred it, and Akufo-Addo would be recorded in history as the one who completed it, a happy and glorifying record for all; pragmatic team-work! Not only is the explanation given for the failure to complete the project refuted in the report; it is also regrettably hollow and transparent, deserving no reiteration here.
Several years back, our then yet-to-become President Rawlings tersely regretted how our hospitals had been turned into what equated to one’s waiting room, last stage, to Eternity. Things were worse then, but the difference between what we had then and what we see and experience now is one between night and day. Too many Countrymen, dear ones, relatives, friends, and acquaintances have passed needlessly, primarily due to inadequacies and neglect of our healthcare system.
The Medical Center Project thankfully promises the badly-needed solution. It envisages equipping Ghana with a world-class, “state-of-the-art” hospital that would afford world-class training for medical professionals and successfully and dignifiedly treat not only Ghanaian patients but also patients from all over the world. Mr. President, we BEG YOU; DO SOMETHING, compel completion of the project, and break with the regressive culture.
Fellow Ghanaians, we have Ghana first; politics and political parties are secondary. Failure of the Country is failure of all of us. Let as make the Medical Center Reportage our watershed, a conscience-awakening moment, and use it apolitically to rally all and sundry to make our governments to do the math right. Let us push our legislators to pass a law that would not allow new governments to lightly neglect promising programs initiated by the preceding administrations. Let us further pressurize our legislators to consider amending the Constitution to add a provision that would make it difficult for our leaders to abandon projects of their predecessors.
Forward Ever, Backward Never; Long Live Ghana, Our Blessed Motherland!
Dr. Nii Otu Quaye
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