IMF Policies For Ghana: A Quicksand

Be Not Deceived

BUDDHA said "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.". 

Let me tell you the logic behind it. Most Now-Developed-Countries (NDCs) are atheists simply because they had to steal our material and human resources to build and develop their countries, leaving us nothing but the religion of continuous faith in Divine Providence; and God bless them for bringing us that light. This however, is what that 'Light', so-called, was used for: We are using it to destroy ourselves by politicizing everything. 
A   foreign policy will tell you to implement strategies that will shut you away from developing, because it is no secret that Africa has the potential of becoming an autonomous gateway to the world, in a broader perspective. 
Each time you see an international aid being extended to any of the Less Endowed Countries (LECs) by any of these NDCs, it is in the name of benefiting from 'something' they do not have to advance their development, all to the detriment of the LECs. I don't want to cite the recent #Ebola concept because I would presume you all know the truth by now. Can you imagine how much money was raised by the so called Foreign Aid Agencies (FAA) and what those funds were used for? You can't begin to imagine it, seriously. 
It is just sad how one person can get so smart and convince his fellow human to kill all of his own kindred and friends and then commit suicide. 
Name all countries suffering tribal wars, never ending bombing and man slaughter in the world. Do you think they are happy doing what they do? Most of these countries have something that the world is in great demand for, and sadly their income per head is 'meagre than a molecular formula' but how do they obtain those weapons of mass destruction? Someone introduced peace treaties, but the person who initiated the 'Art of Wars' was and still at large. I would for ever beg, of world indulgence, to differ.The recent 'slaughter' of Muammar Gadafi, my only general, is still unjustified. What are the crimes that was leveled against him? Did anyone give him the chance to exercise his basic human right to be tried at some court? Was he really guilty? Ask any Libyan you know and you then will weigh the differences of the bad, the good and the ugly. 
The truth hurts especially those who know it and hide it from public knowledge. The last time I checked, the most stressed point of Gaddafi's war crimes was when he nationalised Libya's Oil Industry (The man was an army General, for crying out loud). The rest of the crimes are just purported truth to win the minds and hearts of the masses, even the very people he provided everything for, as to how cruel the man has been. I love China for one thing and one thing only; For finding their way to the apex of the ladder of development. After refusing all foreign aids and policies, that they knew shall cripple their development, it is unpredictably awesome now to imagine where Chinese products can be found across the globe. About 80% of the world manufactured products are "Made In China". That was just few years above a decade or so ago. 
How long has Ghana been 'Marking Time'?...... Since time immemorial. The sad truth could be that Ghana may never even see a partial development on the covers of the books of records "If politicians are allowed to run the country with the so-called foreign policies". Pause!That's just one side of the whole. Looking at democracy from a corner, it has since, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and after J.J. Rawlings, depleted virtues and courtesy in Ghana and Africa as a whole. You can't teach music to a Bushman, as they said, simply because he has his own rhythms composed by birds who can sing even better. The most misinterpreted nature of democracy is the freedom of speech and we, the people of the motherland, have used that platform, based on flimsy ignorance, ridiculed the various arms of government. 
If leadership fails, check first the hinges of the constitution and then the people. Lawlessness in Ghana has given birth to vices, top to the very bottom of the chain of command. The advent of kickbacks, corruption, theft and embezzlement of tax payers money have all been caused by the greed of those entrusted with power, by the masses. The problems of the never-ending power outages was not caused by the lack of the ability to govern but the lack of knowledge of a foreseeable future occurrences, on the part of those employed to operate the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). Mr Kofi Wayo said, try asking the Energy Minister how many energy bulbs it will take to produce a megawatt of electricity and you will hear "Ananse" stories and everyone thought he was being funny. He has just stated one simple fact of those officials holding public offices in this country, Ghana. Most of these public servants have no idea what their responsibilities and duties are so it is fair to understand that certain appalling mistakes would be committed every now and again. I can cite an instance of the recent case between Ghana Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and Foto-X where an officer signed a contract without first reading a clause that stated about more than 200% increment of the signed deal. He apologised for negligence and was left off the hook. One must always know that the growth rate of a given developing nation is always twice the mortality rate and never less. The minute a country falls under the LEC category on the world map, the policies of the country in question must double or even triple , or quadruple if they can, the budget for the populace demand for energy consumption. 
Adoption of foreign and so called upper class social life expands and people want to live better, hence the demand for utility. Since all electrical appliances used in Ghana are mainly imported, there is always this conflict of meeting the energy demands for such products. A check should have been put in place to forestall any energy crises we face today. The government however is only interested in something else, known to benefit only them and their future generations. 
It is only in Ghana, that people from the lower class contribute money termed as TAX to enrich those at the upper class. A sad truth is that most of the people from the lower class could not afford education even at the basic level but their contributions have helped educate children of the people in the upper class and enabled them acquired all forms of higher education, both national and international. Pause!Here is the most intriguing part of it all; such children with such higher education consider themselves not "equals" to those whose money has paid for their education. Failure to realize this truth is the education they could never afford. Pause! The only person who deserves to lead Ghana out of the slams of the so-called Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) category MUST be someone who understand what it means "to not have" when they eventually attain some level in life. Not IMF Borrowing Policy! This, I'm certain, no politician in Ghana today has the balls to boast of. I always pay my dues to the man Flt. Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, our most former president of Ghana. I salute! The unmatched leader and ruler. He may have not been perfect in his dealings but at least he ensured equal distribution of basic needs and wants of Ghanaians. I may have been young at the time to understand but I tell you what "A chicken never forgets who plucked its feathers in the rainy season". If every leader would be as devoted as Rawlings was, and still is I believe, Ghana shall smile again. May God bless the good people and let them live long among us to show us the way. Amen!........Looking back, on how things have been and how things are now, only gives us cause to worry greatly about how things will become should we continue this way. Back then, the share of the national cake was some-what balanced, though the "minister children" were pursued from all corners of the nation to go to school free, something we cannot boast of in the present era. One may argue that it was introduced but I tell you that it has always been part of the agenda of things planned in the constitution of Ghana set aside in the Vision 2020 as the Free and Compulsory Universal Basic Education for ever Ghanaian of school-going age. Four year however into reaching that 2020 mark, if you would take out this month and December from the calendar year, how far have we come in reaching that mark when in 2015 our younger ones are still paying everything pertaining to enrollment into educational institutions from the basic level up.President John Dramani Mahama, great speech! but Mr. President the people you have appointed and employed to work with you are not doing anything to help the rest of Ghanaians who voted most of them into the offices they find themselves in today. We are told daily that Ghana is owing huge sums of dollars but I am yet to hear a member of parliament complain about his salary and other allowances that are not paid or that there has been even a delay to that effect. The Gh₵ 50,000 Rent Allowances that was paid every member of parliament first month of the Mahama led Administration could have been used for something better. This is the more reason Ghana does not see the impact of your reign so far.
The people of Ghana demand some sort of transparency, accountability and probity into the works assigned to all these public servants. As a matter of fact, these people are to serve us, Ghanaians and not for them to make us their door mats. They are not gods over ordinary Ghanaians whatsoever. If I was that influential in this country I would have urged that nobody votes ever again until we see some significant changes in our various constituencies. 
It makes one feels as though ECG is now the new president and you, His Excellency John Mahama, are the vice. ECG would cut the power exactly on schedule but will delay, few minutes into the dead of the night, before they will bring back power to us, a service that we have paid in full for. Most of these public servants that we helped put in office enjoy these utilities free of charge and so could care less whether we get it or not. If you never lack anything in life, it is hard and simply impossible to have the impulse of fighting for those who are in great need of those things that you enjoy, free for that matter. Accountability NOW!
The first step, to realising economic freedom for Ghana is protectionism, and in the broadest sense of the word, thereby giving our infant industries equal opportunities to grow and stay up to standards and remain ever competitive. We should let all foreign partners to understand that we deserve to do everything on our own, just like Osagyefou Dr Kwame Nkrumah told them almost 50 years ago that "The black man is willing and capable of managing his own affairs", if I quoted that correctly. 
For the oil industry, we can also send our own workers abroad to study how to use the technologies required to mine our own oil so we can have the greater percentage and export the excess just like every other NDCs are doing it. We can start by letting all Chinese industrialists leave first because those people would understand, because they did the same to reach where they are today. Let us make the rest of the world respect us and so we can stop going to them "cup in hand".None of the policies we have received from the IMF has worked for us thus far and that is just sad. We can start printing our own currency, as a result, and will be able to determine the nature and strength of our currency in the world market. If Ghana's currency must be used for something proper and decent, it should and must be spent on training our own entrepreneurs, engineers and economists abroad, who would come back home and help build and develop this country and not for paying hired foreign companies and contractors. This only is the main reason for the gross mass migration of Africans to the wild. It may take a while but not another 50 years. 
The economists in the IMF, whose policies we admire so much, know for a fact that their policies would never work for us, only in reverse where it is their plot to never let us grow from where we were left off but rather sink socio-economically, health-wise, and infrastructure-wise. These people do not live in our country to be able to determine how best we can solve our problems. Ask any of these IMF economists, at the World Bank or wherever, for their varied views on life in Africa and you will hear stories themed around the time of Kunta Kinte; even that guy, Kunta Kinte, was never a Ghanaian so tell me how can any of these people's policies help us develop? 
We are now at our roots and it would take us, as Ghanaians only, to build and develop Ghana to where we want it to be without depending on anything from the developed countries. Our over-dependence on foreign policies have caused all African countries to close borders on their sister countries, which has served a gross hindrances to the flow of chain-development across the continent. Not only that but also it has impeded the free exchange of human and material resources necessary for Africa to develop totally and independently. 
Why can't all Africans be one community, living as a common people, hand-in-hand as close neighbors with a common purpose? Someone foresees the dangers African Unity would pose to their plans to 'ruling the world' indirectly. 
How long must we continue being victims of the same pact that we have allowed to continue all these years? Must we let others, who have no understanding of our needs, dictate how best we run our economy and how to rule the people of our own country? Can't we put our feet down like China, Switzerland and even the United States of America did when Europe was then the great dictator? Why must we always play the victims when it is ourselves who have allowed our own victimization?
The solution, as contained in the context of Buddha's speech that "...But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it..." SHALL and MUST be our only way forward. 
GOD BLESS OUR HOMELAND GHANA....AND MAKE HER GREAT AND STRONG across all the lands of the Earth!!!

Letter To The President of GHANA

Be Not Deceived

Good morning, Mr President John Dramani Mahama, I would like to say kudos for giving Ghanaians your best in everything you do. I believe it is your utmost desire to meet every needs of Ghanaians but it is no secret that the economic wants and needs of every economic being are insatiable.

I would like to put a pressing need before your throne for a critical perusal. It is an open secret that we face energy crises as Ghanaians for some months now and this problem seems to be the most persistent of all in the history of the country, except when Ghana never had the opportunity to utilize this amenity.

The load shedding scheme, as proposed by the Electricity Company Of Ghana (E.C.G), which Ghanaians has no other option than to accept, even aside the fact that we pay, in full, to fully utilize this necessary utility, which by law the company has no excuse whatsoever to deny any Ghanaian this service, by reason of an implied contract with the company ECG and the people of Ghana, has now depleted into nothing to come home to. The load shedding now seems to be favoring some particular groups of people who are close enough to the government that those of us living in the less endowed secluded areas of the country are in total denial. 

This has only shown us one fact that those of us in denial do not form any part of Ghana to enjoy electricity, although we paid in full since the introduction of the prepaid meters. What then is the use of 'prepaid' when you have credit on your meter but cannot have access to electricity, the reason for which you bought the prepaid units, in the first place? Could it be that someone is not doing their job for which they were employed or this is just a total negligence of corporate management to foresee the crises and take corrective actions against this before it even manifested? I did not go school much but I know that the energy demands for a country like ours in any given fiscal year is double the the population growth rate, if the statistical department did their job well. 

Mr Kofi Wayo was saying something that I shared the same views with that if you should ask the Energy Minister how many energy bulbs would be required to produce a Megawatt of electricity you are only going to hear Kweku Ananse stories, which sadly is the truth. 

This makes one wonder, as a true Ghanaian, if ECG is the new president of Ghana, and a dictator at that, and you, Mr President, the vice. This because, ECG now has the autonomous power to decide when everyone stays inside their rooms or stays outside, goes to work or declare holiday for as long as the lights stay off. Whenever it is time to cut the power, for the so-called load shedding, exactly 6:00 PM (or 6:00 AM) the lights are out without even a split second of delay. 

Here is the downside; when it is time for the lights to come back on, be it after 24 hours or 12 hours schedule, whoever is supposed to turn the lights back on for us chooses his or her own time table other than the scheduled time table given Ghanaian. Sometimes, one forgets and sleeps only for the lights to come somewhere in the dead of the night. Sometimes it does not come at all and you would have to call the ECG help line and wait, praying, someone might answer. 

Those of us using the light for work, school and the likes, have less chances of making any head-way. How do we support our families should life continue, for the average Ghanaian, this way, and for how long? We have voted through this purported system of the right to exercise our franchise as Ghanaians to choose the right people to work for us and this is what we get, makes one to wonder if voting these people was the root cause of the problems we face now as Ghanaians. 

Whenever there is a need for something this crucial  to be done in a great demand in Ghana, the only people who suffer the most is the same people who voted these self-acclaimed superior politicians into the offices they find themselves in today. It has become more like one has to pour a libation and hope that he or she would be able to see his or her Member of Parliament. 

In worst case scenarios, most of these MPs never step foot in their communities until another electioneering campaign era. It is only then that they show up with another 'politri-cal motto' to deceive the masses. So I crave your indulgence, Mr President, to tell me this; should I be so influential that I urge every Ghanaian to not cast a single vote until they see a significant change of attitude of these ministers working hard to transform their respective communities come 2016 election, would I be prosecuted for damning the Constitution of Ghana? 

Whatever the answer may be, I just want the best for this country even though nobody knows I even exist in this country but it is more like a cheat when the person you voted to serve your interests in parliament only resorts to "yeee yeee" everyday in parliament because he or she knows that by the end of the month he would get paid 7,000.00 Ghana cedis and other allowances. Let us just assume for a second that all these people do not have to be paid, due to the fact of not doing their responsibilities, seven thousand times two hundred and seventy-five would be enough money to start a new water project or something beneficial to the people of Ghana, which I would like to call the "GREATER GOOD" for Ghanaians. 

I sincerely apologise, should any statement, contained herein, either implicitly or explicitly, expressed or unexpressed, contradicts the civil right of being a Ghanaian. 

Since there was no way I would present this to your office and have it looked at, I think it would be for the good of Ghana if we stay transparent with the running of Our Motherland Ghana.

Thank you.

Marc Oscar