Eendemic Poverty Will Kill Ghanaian Democracy As Sure As Day Follows Night!

If it persists, endemic poverty will eventually kill Ghanaian democracy, as sure as day follows night.

To prevent that from happening, it is extremely important that our ruling elites understand clearly that they ought to end those endless and pointless arguments, as well as their inane, irritating and foolish point-scoring - and focus instead, on the hard work needed to finally eradicate the scourge of poverty, from Nkrumah's Ghana.

Perhaps the question we ought to ask is: Why do they not rather concentrate their considerable energies on thinking creatively about how Ghana can leverage the new green economy (including tapping the burgeoning carbon markets!), and focus on fashioning a new paradigm that ensures we are put on a path of sustainable development, and, at a time of global climate change, protect our long-term future that way - from the very real threat, which global-warming poses to our collective well-being as a people?

Ordinary Ghanaians are totally fed up with the endless and non-productive arguments of politicians.

Take the disingenuous and deliberately distracting argument about Ghana "going HIPC again" for example. Ghanaian politicians know full well that loans from the capital markets of the financial capitals of the developed world can lead to growth-inhibiting "debt distress" - the World Bank and IMF's euphemism for a poor debt-laden nation's inability to service its loans.

A classic example from the Kufuor-era, during the final years of his New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime, being our having to fork out some US$38.8 millions every six months, on coupon payments (paying interest) on the money raised from the former administration's foolish and short-sighted decision to issue sovereign bonds to the tune of some US$750 millions - and not making good use of most of the cash raised either, much to the Ghanaian nation-state's detriment: to compound that foolishness.

Yet, almost all our politicians know perfectly well, that the more sensible thing to do, if it becomes absolutely necessary to borrow, is to resort to borrowing concessionary loans from friendly governments, such as that of China's, for example. F

The reason being that such concessiinary loans by friendly governments pose very little threat to our country's long-term financial well-being. What proportion of the debts that were written off under the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC), were loans from private-sector financial institutions, I ask?

Perhaps the question we ought to ask is: Why don't our politicians spend their energies, arguing instead, about how best to ensure sustainable development, which will guarantee all of us a good quality of life and ensure that future generations of Ghanaians too, can, at the very least, enjoy the same living standard as ours today, if not better?

If our ruling elites want our nation to become a prosperous one for all its citizens (not just a "powerful few with greedy ambitions" - to quote Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah), then they must step out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking. It is such folly, to continue to pursue (and be blinded by "impressive") gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate figures, to the exclusion of everything else.

What is the point of impressive GDP figures, for example, if much of what constitutes that growth are economic activities that destroy the natural environment - when the preservation of our natural heritage guarantees and underpins a good quality of life for all who live in Ghana?

What self-respecting primary school child in Ghana, does not know that in the compilation of Ghana's GDP figures, account is seldom taken of how objective conditions in the real-world affect people's quality of life - as experienced in their everyday existential interactions which form part of the sum total of economic activities that make up Ghana's GDP? (Yes, dear reader, there is absolutely nothing wrong with even a semi-literate old fool like me bringing in a hint of Sartre and Kierkegaard into economic discussions - in the small matter of the formulation of every-day free-will purchasing decisions, by thinking and supposedly rational beings.)

That is why, for example, although the NPP's many apologists used to make such a din about Ghana's "impressive GDP figures" during the Kufuor-era, in the real everyday world of hard-working ordinary folk, life was a constant struggle for survival: in an existence that more often than not was based on a one-day-at-a-time philosophical underpinning, to keep highly-stressed individuals sane.

The absurdity of their political leaders' obsession with GDP figures, to the exclusion of everything else, for ordinary Ghanaians at that point in time in our history, was that whiles the politically well-connected who were the main beneficiaries of those "impressive GDP figures" prospered mightily under Kufuor & Co, ordinary people's lived experiences over that entire period in effect amounted to seeing a steady erosion in their living standards and a deterioration in the quality of their lives, as the years rolled by.

In the meantime, along with the expansion of the economy, and those "impressive GDP figures", the personal net worth of the lucky few thousands with solid political connections soared to stratospheric heights. And all that, whiles most ordinary Ghanaian families in urban Ghana were spending a substantial part of their stressed-out days regularly searching for water to fill their "Kufuor-gallons" with.

Yet, they witnessed the quality of life for their ruling elites, on the other hand, improving in leaps and bounds and in inverse proportion to the deterioration in their quality of life, as evidenced by the drudgery and misery piled upon them, as a result of a failing system being milked dry by a ruthless, amoral, and rapacious politically well-connected few.

Today, at a time of global climate change, under the Mills regime too - a regime that promised us a better Ghana - inaction on the part of officialdom has led to a vast swathe of the Ghanaian countryside being rapidly destroyed: as gold-fever drives mad those who are motivated solely by unfathomable greed and don't care one jot about the harmful effect their activities have on the natural environment, in our homeland Ghana.

They are gradually destroying much of our natural heritage, and with a degree of ruthlessness seldom seen in our history, and, alas, doing so with complete impunity. Their enormous wealth enables them buy off officialdom at the local level, with ease and very little pain financially.

Alarmingly, everywhere one turns, when one seeks to halt their illegal activities, one finds one's path blocked by the actions and inactions of the mostly poorly-paid public officials that those wealthy criminals are corrupting - the selfsame public officers who are supposed to be the Ghanaian nation-state's first line of defence against illegal activities that harm the natural environment.

The results of their success in inducing such officials to look the other way for them is that a blind eye is turned to their harmful, mostly-illegal and environmentally-damaging surface gold mining operations. If current trends, such as the current goings-on at Akyem Abuakwa and elsewhere in the Eastern Regions continue in the direction they are heading, we must not at all be surprised, if soon they all eventually metamorphose into local warlords.

That is exactly how Liberian and Sierra Leonian warlords started their rebellions against lawfully constituted authority in those two sister nations. Yet, the dangerous and harmful gold mining operations of these criminal syndicates yield a fair bit of ounces of gold, which doubtless contribute to our GDP. But, in effect, are they not actually ruining the quality of life of millions of rural folk nationwide, I ask?

Sadly, much of officialdom appears to be helpless in dealing with this particular group of ruthless criminal-types, whose untold riches, and greed for even yet more wealth, make them chase Mammon, their god, with such steely determination and tunnel-vision resolve. Yet, stopped, they must be, for all our sake!

The continuing upward climb in the price of gold has encouraged the criminal syndicates behind galamsey operations nationwide to strike alliances with equally ruthless foreign adventurers (mainly Chinese nationals).

Poverty and hopelessness, it is said, are the biggest enemies of democracy. It is therefore extremely important, if Ghanaian democracy as we know it, is to survive, that the iniquitous monkey-dey-work-baboon-dey-chop-nyafu-nyafu society, which the greed of our ruling elites has turned the Ghanaian polity into, is ended quickly - and the laying of the  foundation for the transformation of Ghana into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia is began in earnest.

More so, now that Ghana has started receiving revenues from the exploitation of its oil deposits (and in the not too distant future, hopefully, revenues from its natural gas deposits too). Our ruling elites ought to focus on policies that will ensure outcomes that give all Ghanaians a better quality of life than they presently have.

If members of our political class continue to fail to listen to those of us who over the years have constantly urged them to make the provision of modern, well-designed and well-built affordable public-sector housing estates (with different types of units available for renting out to ordinary people nationwide), a top cross-party national priority item, life for most ordinary Ghanaians will only continue to gradually worsen under the current system, I am afraid.

Ghana's ruling elites must take a cue from the canny Chinese leadership - which has just announced a housing programme to avert future social discontent. An important factor in having a bearable life, is a decent roof over one's head - with modern amenities such as a bathroom and lavatory; kitchen; electricity; running potable water 24/7; and rental rates that are reasonable and affordable.

The Ghanaian nation-state must therefore, either directly itself, or through tax incentives to attract the private sector to do so, immediately embark on a policy of providing good quality and affordable rental accommodation for all those Ghanaian citizens who can never build or purchase their own homes, within their lifetime.

That, and free education for the academically-gifted who cannot afford to pay fees (at all levels), are the key building-blocks in ensuring that all Ghanaians get a good quality of life. Unlike Ghana's ruling elites, ordinary people don't aspire to owning as many as twenty homes, ten luxury vehicles, have zillions in fifty different bank accounts and travel abroad every month to sleep in their luxury homes in the capitals of the developed world, for a few days, and return again to Ghana: to continue enjoying their zillion-dollar lifestyles.

Ordinary people do not ask for the moon - they just want to be able to work and receive fair compensation for their labour (or own and run small businesses that will not be taxed out of existence by profligate rulers!); have decent and affordable accommodation in planned and leafy neighbourhoods, with proper infrastructure; educate their children in good public schools (with no more than 25 children per class!); be able to pay their bills regularly; eat three decent meals daily; and have enough money from their wages put aside, to see them through life's emergencies, when they occur.

Above all, they want to live in a nation with a just and fair system, which makes all the above possible for the average hard-working family with simple middle-class aspirations. Surely, that is not asking for too much, is it, dear reader?

If our leaders continue milking the system, and exploiting our national economy for their personal benefit, as well as that of their family clans and their cronies, they must not be surprised if ordinary people eventually rise up one fine day and act to finally rid themselves of the unjust and iniquitous 4th Republic - and replaced it with a new 5th Republic that serves the interests of all Ghanaians: not just those of a powerful few with greedy ambitions. A word to the wise...

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