Ghana has the world best resources. For example we have gold, black gold, minerals, human resources and above all the warmth of friendship. However its population is still living in shantytown and ghettos.
African countries are facing severe macroeconomic crisis in the face of persistent ill-considered national policies and a global downturn. The symptoms in Ghana are sluggish growth in GDP, inflation, rising unemployment and less international competitiveness; and mountains of social problems.
Our population is growing very rapidly yet some of our men are still living in the dark ages, littering the country with their children all over the place without even paying for maintenance. Sadly our system has no safety net for those children caught up in this mess. When will Ghana come to terms with this and accept social reforms as a priority.
The previous Government came to power and invested heavily in Jubilee house and Ghana @50 instead of investing in drastic social reforms. We also have scholars in Ghana who rather like to show off that they are the social elites. Yet the majority of Ghanaians are languishing in poverty. Even when we travel we fail to acknowledge these issues and instead spend the little money we get on parties. These scenes are even posted on www.ghanaweb.com What are we portraying to the youth of today when we display such wealth when many of our own people are starving.
Ghana’s policy makers must act now to address inequalities in Ghana if we say we are the black stars of Africa. Well Ghanaians have no time to waste any more and want action in this area.
Thank God Ghana‘s new Mayor of Accra is attempting to address some of these issues. I strongly feel all the Mayors of our regions should meet quarterly and try to address these issues. Right now many cities and towns are struggling yet Government and local communities do not see these issues as a top priority. There are too many shantytowns in Ghana and we need to eradicate them one by one. We need to introduce re-housing policies through low cost housing schemes. Ghana needs to also face up to the aging population with innovative day care centres for our elderly to meet up and socialise.
Our population is expanding very rapidly and may be the Government needs to address with drastic sexual health strategies and family planning measures. Having more children is rather uncool these days. Would it be better to have to few children so that we can invest for a better future and a better Ghana perhaps? Let us focus on having quality children instead. This means we have fewer mouths to feeds and as a result we live longer to enjoy the fruits of our labour. One hopes the current Government would listen more, work in partnership with community leaders and the Mayors for a better Ghana.
Ghana needs expansion of social developments, corporate social responsibility on the part of businesses and finally our constitution must have social responsibility embedded within it.
