African is running back into slavery; Ghana is part
African is running back into slavery, and Ghana is not left out of the race. If the present generation of leaders and Ghanaians, in general, fail this nation, posterity will not forgive us. Most Ghanaians were born several years after Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah passed on. This means that most of us did not experience his rule over Ghana. But thanks to written literature we are able to know and understand his rule and all that he did for us as a nation.
He (Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah) even though not perfect displayed a high sense of patriotism, one of such characters was displayed in the construction of state-owned properties. These properties were built to serve Ghanaians by rendering services to the masses and also creating employment to the same. Ghana Television (GTV), Ghana water company, *Electricity Company Ghana (ECG), Ghana Ports and Harbor Authority (GHAPOA), *Merchant Bank and many others.
All these were put in place by our fathers because they were good fathers who thought not only about themselves but also about the future generation. A government is not a person, but a group of people form the government. For the government to keep running it has to generate funds and these funds are to be generated through state-owned firms, even though private firms contribute to the government through taxes, it still won’t be enough.
In the early years of our independence, our leaders set up these firms not to defraud the masses but to make life in the country pleasing to all and sundry. It baffles me that now, that over seventy per cent (70%) of our population has received some form of education, things have started taking a nose dive. (Education, probably makes the African dumber).
This is my question to the government, why would a post-colonial government (with no experience) build institutions only for a modern government to use them as collaterals for loans or even sell them off totally. Mind you, these monies are used to initiate projects, most of which fail to see the light of day and some are temporal.
Every right-thinking person will agree with me that these institutions were built to be used as tools to generate funds not to be liquidated. Now that we have started selling them, what will our future leaders also sell, that is, if the only way is to be selling these institutions?
The sales of these institutions is a lazy and an irresponsible act, if we should continue like this, we will end up back into slavery, because all that will be left will be rich families and a highly indebted poor country.
Most African countries are running back into slavery, and Ghana is not left out of the race. This is happening because of greed and lack of reasoning on the part of our leaders. These leaders will advise unemployed graduates to turn to entrepreneurship but they fail to do the same, unlike the graduates who have to start from scratch with nothing at all, they have already established firms with available human labour, all they have to do is to sustain it with their knowledge, yet they fail us every time. They always want to take the easy way out. I believe any group of leaders that fails to sustain a state-owned firm, that group should be kicked out without hesitation.
An Akan adage says “eating every day is better than eating once.” A onetime payment will only lead us into poverty. How many privately owned properties are on sale today? Just few, almost seventy per cent of such firms are on lease or rent basis because a true business person knows how to make his money work for him, so the sales of state-owned properties are worthless and irresponsible. What sets me off about this sales too is that the firms are sold to foreign private entities.
Private entities are profiteers, their concern is not to make you comfortable even though they make you believe so, and they are more concerned with the profits they make more than the customer’s interest. The kind of profits a foreign investor demands from his investments in a foreign country is none compared to the local investor. This proves that Ghana is gradually never going to get better.