The Road to the Castle-Selecting our next President

As the Kuffour administration waddles on its last throes to lame duck oblivion, many aspiring presidential candidates have started jockeying for positions to contend for the soon to be vacant slot at the Osu Castle.

To his critics, mainly political pundits to the left of Ghana’s political divide, the Kuffour administration has been an abysmal failure- an opportunity wasted. But I disagree with the President’s critics. To President Kuffour’s credit, Ghana has enjoyed relative peace and stability. Let’s face it; Kuffour is the exact antithesis of the divisive persona of his predecessor, Jerry John Rawlings. President Kuffour faced a daunting task on assuming the presidency. He assumed the presidency from a government that glamorized violence and used night soil as a weapon of mass intimidation. So Kuffour was the right person for the right time. If a firebrand politician of the caliber of Kwame Nkrumah had assumed the presidency after Jerry Rawlings, the country would have been plunged into total chaos. Rawlings’ incessant diatribes and provocations would have landed him at Nsawam triggering political crisis. We still see the ravaging effects of the lawlessness that Rawlings bequeathed to the nation-marauding youth attacking law enforcement officers at the slightest provocation, a pervasive national atmosphere of lawlessness and anomie.

Which Candidate?

I’m not here to endorse, denigrate or deride any candidate. However, Ghana is at crossroads. We therefore need to set the parameters of our collective expectations of what we want our next President to accomplish in office. The fierce urgency of now requires that we elect a leader with a vision to transform the nation from a third world country to a second world country within a decade. If Ghana is to emerge from its unenviable position as a mendicant nation dependent on international handouts for survival and assume its rightful place in the comity of nations as a self-reliant and self respecting nation, we should not be deceived by titles and accolades, oratory and blood connections in selecting our next president. The 2008 election will be a bellwether. We should be wary of any aspiring presidential candidate who gives speeches long on ‘wahala” rhetoric and short on substantive specificity. We should not make the mistake of electing any candidate cast in the mold of any president dead or alive. With the transition of the country from political lawlessness to democratic stability now complete, Ghana needs a President who is his own man, who can withstand Rawlings’ choleric disposition and incessant outburst of unapologetic stream of billingsgate and at the same time focus on the big picture of the affairs of the state. This applies to candidates of the two leading parties.

Level Playing Field.

There have been hints that the President’s brother, Dr. Addo Kuffour might declare his intention to run for the presidency. Dr. Addo Kuffour should not entertain any idea of running while his brother is at the Castle. To give all the candidates a level playing field without the President exploiting the power of incumbency to assist his brother, Dr. Addo Kuffour should abandon any dream of running while his brother is at the Castle. Ghana should not create and perpetuate a dynastic oligarchy. When his brother the President is out of the Castle, Dr. Addo Kuffour can run on his own strength.

Running on the Issues/ Economic Team

All the aspiring candidates should tell the whole nation where they stand on the pertinent issues facing the nation. They should tell us how they intend to improve the economy, health, education, social service and agriculture. Not just lip service, but substantive programs with figures to support how they intend to fund the programs. Any candidate who does not have an economic team in place by now should stop running. Yes, the candidates need the number crunchers to draft an economic policy now and not wait until they win the presidency. I’m not talking about their party manifesto but their own program of action for the economy.

Agriculture

These aspiring candidates should tell the nation how they intend to solve Ghana’s perennial food problem. It is enough for these politicians to say that they will be increasing food production under their presidency. They have to explain how they intend to change the current agriculture regimen which is sustained by fair-weather productivity. How they intend to replace it with a sustainable model driven by profit, economies of scale and post production preservation. If a politician says he is going to increase food production without saying anything about post production infrastructure, we should not elect such a leader. We need a leader with the foresight to designate what food items constitute the strategic crops of Ghana with national security implications. Food items like, corn, plantain, yam, cassava, millet, rice, poultry, cattle, sheep and goats should be designated as Ghana’s strategic food items with year round regularity or availability-be it preserved or fresh. For far too long, Ghanaian politicians have paid lip service to their electioneering promises. This has to change. Let the politicians tell us their food production goals- they should tell us their target production numbers and how they intend to fund these priorities. They should be held to measurable performance guarantees. If we elect a leader who at the end of his first term is not able to achieve the performance goals he promised, he should be a one-term president-the good people of Ghana should vote him out.

National Road Network

The politicians should tell the nation their program for solving the crisis facing the nation on our highways. If a candidate does not have a plan for an inter-regional highway system for the country, he should not be elected. I am talking about four-lane divided highways with on and off ramps and no traffic signals. We should set a national goal of having this ready in 20 years-a quantum leap ahead of the haphazard collection of country roads that currently dot our national landscape and that have become death traps. The candidates should explain how they are going to finance this project. If you have no such plan, please save us the trouble-don’t even run. This will cost billions of dollars. But this is doable. The next president’s first term legislative agenda should include setting up a dedicated highway trust fund financed mainly by tax on gasoline and a national highway toll on existing road network. This fund should be used to finance the inter-regional highway system.

Health Care System

Any candidate, who does not have a comprehensive health care policy to address the crisis-ridden healthcare delivery system of the nation, deserves not to be elected. He needs to tell the nation now, what his plans are, how he intends to finance those plans. He needs to tell us how he intends to fund new healthcare initiatives. We need to know how he intends to fight AIDS, Malaria, and childhood disease-the bane of Ghana’s healthcare system. Today, Hepatitis B&C, diabetes, hypertension and asthma have reached epidemic proportions in Ghana. Please tell us your plans now and save us trouble down the road. Each candidate should indicate how he intends to revamp the National Health Insurance Scheme and the funding mechanism he intends to put in place to salvage the scheme.

Plans to Overhaul Tax System

If you don’t have on your legislative agenda any program to streamline the income tax system, please don’t run for this high office. The President should present legislation to Parliament that would fundamentally overhaul our Byzantine tax system. We should get rid of the tax regime that allows a majority of the population engaged in legitimate business or otherwise to operate outside the tax system. How can a country of 22 million people thrive if only 1.4 million people are tax payers? If you don’t have any program to rid the country of the current porous, exemption-riddled tax system, please don’t run. They should tell us how they are going to get the briefcase toting connection man, the globe trotting drug trafficker, the bribe-dependent civil servant and the countless kalabule business men and women to now pay tax. The politician who is convicted of bribery and embezzlement should pay tax on the monies misappropriated. The property owner who rents out or leases his property and is paid monthly rent in local or foreign currency should pay tax on his income. The property owner who gets a lump sum payment (advance or goodwill) for leasing his property should pay tax on this windfall. A capital gain tax should also be enacted to tap into the vast pool of untaxed monies earned by people who sell their properties, businesses and stocks. In addition to prosecuting offenders, the IRS should be given the power to attach the properties of those found guilty and sell them on the open market. Sales-tax-Should the central government be receiving all sale taxes or that should go to the regions? Sales taxes should all go to the regions where they were generated.


Property tax- There is no reason why cities like Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi etc. should be primarily dependent on the central government subvention in order to function. With the boom in housing construction, the revenue from property tax should also increase exponentially. The problem is nobody pays property tax in Ghana. The current laws on the books have failed to curb this widespread tax evasion. That is why we need new and tougher laws to assist local governments in collecting the monies owed them. The various local governments should also be staffed with accountants, tax lawyers etc. to help them maximize their revenue from property tax. All defaulting land lords and property owners should have their properties forfeited and put on the auction block. There should be no laxity in enforcing the law. The various local governments should set the deadline for payment of property tax. If you’re in default after the grace period, the property should be sold to recoup the money owed to the local government.

Education

The aspiring presidential candidates should tell the whole nation their plans for restructuring our educational system. The critical decision should be made whether Ghana can continue to offer its citizenry free university education. The current system has failed the nation. As a beneficiary of the current system, I know what I am taking about. I’m still paying the loans for my post graduate studies in the states. But have I paid for my University of Ghana undergraduate loan? No! Why? The Ghana Commercial Bank does not have any record of my loan. In the early eighties, a family member who was visiting Ghana (also a beneficiary of the current system) went to the Ghana Commercial Bank to repay my 900 cedis University of Ghana loan. To his dismay Ghana Commercial Bank could not locate my loan documents. The Manager directed him to the Liberty branch of the bank to a room full of documents stacked up to the ceiling. He paid a clerk (a bank employee) three days labor to go through the documents if he could locate both our loan records. When the family member returned three days later, he was told that the clerk had traveled out of town. Apparently, he decided to travel when he got the money. That was the end of our attempts to repay our student loans. About 90% of the so-called ‘aluta graduates’ have not paid their college loans. Let the presidential candidates tell us their program for recouping these monies for the state. They should tell us their educational initiatives from kindergarten to the university and how they intend to fund these initiatives. Until we hold the politicians accountable to their electioneering promises, it will be politics as usual come 2008.

God Save Ghana.