The Abanoma theory; Woes Of The Ghanaian Economy

Ghana is an interesting place to be, she is blessed with numerous historical sites and mineral resources also. These things are instruments a country must use to generate resources to run its economy.

As a developing country, we need to be collectively focused on a common agenda, irrespective of our political affiliation. We need to be focused on achieving development through industrialization instead of partisanship. At this point, we don’t need spectators from any of the sectors of our economy but active participants.

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In Ghana when a man enters into marriage with a child from another woman or vice versa, that child is referred to as “abanoma” (stepchild). This child if he or she belongs to the man, the child doesn’t get the best treatment from the woman and vice versa. In both cases, the parents fail to show love to the child simply because they didn’t bring the child into existence. This simply happens because they believe if they invest in the child, he or she may grow up and only focus on taking care of his or her biological parents.

It is the same with Ghanaian politics, this practice is what I call the “Abanoma theory”.
We have established the fact that there are over twenty (20) political parties in Ghana, yet for the past twenty-six (26) years only two keep changing power and this has created a rivalry between them.

When two elephants fight it’s the grass that suffers, this simply means that the display of their rivalry is affecting us negatively as a nation. These two have separate development plan booklet which contains policies which have been fulfilled and ones that are yet to fulfilled and it is updated every four years. If party A leaves office whiles a project was underway, it is halted by party B because it doesn’t fit into their development policies. It is good to have planned policies but please complete projects to avoid wastage.

As a result of this, several projects which could have solved our unemployment challenge in this country have been halted and left to rot. This is causing Ghana an awful lot, we go in for loans for these projects, instead of us to ensure that every project is completed and functional, we rather go for more to start projects which will likely not see the light of day, just to gain vainglory.

Ghanaians who have been given a few cedi notes will be defending these acts on media outlets and they call themselves die-hard supporters, they and those paying them are die-hard enemies of this country. This is sheer wickedness.
In recent times it was discovered by an investigative journalist that a number of buses bought by the Mahama led administration for the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) has been left to rot because the GPRTU refused to buy it from the government and pay in installment. GPRTU also said they turned down the buses because the prices were too high and because of that a government who claims to love her country just wasted a huge amount of money and hid it from us.

But why didn’t the government reduce the prices to recover part of the sum that was used to acquire the bus? A thousand affordable housing units in Wa have also been left to rot, because it wasn’t affordable. There are a lot of civil servants in Wa who are renting at reasonable rates, why can’t our government understand the plea of her people and make the affordable housing project affordable instead of abandoning it.

Recently it was discovered that “Ayalolo” buses bought in 2016 have also be left to rot because the cost of running them outweighs its revenue. Before any person decides to go into business, he or she makes sure that business is lucrative, no one walks blindly into a non-profitable venture, and even NGOs gain profits. There are offices that make sure that whatever business the government ventures into is safe and can make her a lot of money before the government does, that office should held accountable for this loss.

All of these incidents were created with money, loans that must be paid for. This is happening in this country because we lack proper accountability system, no one is willing to set up accountability committee because they will be referred to as witch hunters and will also be met with the same fate when their tenure is due.

I think we deserve accountability from our leaders. Am a taxpayer, so I think every government must have a committee that will look into the affairs of the immediate past government, I believe this will curb the rate of corruption in our country to some level.
Arise Ghanaian youth and demand proper accountability system, one that will be independent of political influence.