Why Ghanaian Voters Must Reject The Machine-Politics Of The Corruption-Riddled NDC/NPP Duopoly

As a patriot and pan-Africanist, who loves his country passionately, it is incredibly frustrating watching our country blithely sleepwalking to yet another four-year-disaster, which is now in the making.

It is all so befuddling: Why  are voters allowing themselves to be tricked into substituting one corrupt  political machine, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), for yet another set of empty-promise-making politicians, from an equally corrupt political machine, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP)?

The question is: At this stage of the game, why is it still not obvious to ordinary Ghanaians that it is dangerous - in a nation in which corruption is endemic - to elect sly politicians riding the crest of an anti-corruption wave now sweeping across the country, who refuse to publicly publish their own assets, and those of their spouses, as well as publicly publish all the sources of their party's election campaign funds?

What are the ends for which  the John Boadus, the Freddie Blays, the Bernard Antwi-Boasiakos, and the rest of them, seek political power, one wonders?

Do they genuinely want to come and serve Ghanaians on a sacrificial basis, as a giving-back-to-society public-service gesture, or do they have secret individual agendas to come to power and amass wealth whiles in office - as so many NDC members are alleged to have done?

Why do the NPP's leading lights refuse to publicly publish their assets, and those of their spouses, as well as publicly publish the sources of their party's election campaign funds - when they constantly  accuse their opponents of being corrupt: and posit that high-level corruption is the biggest drawback to the economic transformation of our country?

What have they got to hide? If ordinary people had had the presence of mind to demand that of John Dramani Mahama & Co, before they first came to power, would we be where we are today - collectively Iamenting the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana, by wealthy and well-connected crooks?

It is amazing that it  has not yet dawned on ordinary Ghanaians that if the John Boadus, the Freddie Blays, the Bernard Antwi-Boasiakos, and the rest of them, are adamant that they will neither publicly publish their own assets - and those of their spouses - nor publicly publish all the sources of their party's election campaign funds, then, clearly, they most definitely do not deserve to be given the mandate to govern the Republic of Ghana, yet again.

And do younger generation Ghanaians not realise that in the ICT era of disruptive technologies, they do not have to tolerate such politicians, and political parties - simply because they do not have to rely on governments of the day to create jobs for them?

Does the technology not exist for younger generation Ghanaians of today to actually create their own e-commerce businesses, on online global trading platforms such as Shopify and Etsy,  and fund their own creative projects, by leveraging online crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter,  GoFundMe and Indiegogo, with their mobile smartphones and tablets?

Let no one deceive them: To progress in life, clued-on young people  today, do not have to rely on feckless politicians promising to create jobs - in a nation that foolishly spends nearly 70 percent of its total tax revenues paying non-productive public-sector employees who are always embarking on strike action.

Young people must get this straight: The only way for Ghana to become a prosperous society, and be transformed into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia,  is by limiting the size of government, abolishing personal income tax and making Ghana the nation with Africa's lowest corporate tax rate.

Ditto lowering interest rates to less than 3 percent, making the whole of the agricultural sector - not just cocoa farming - and the ancilliary input businesses in the sector's value-chain, tax free. That is what has made cocoa farming in Ghana sustainable and enabled it to remain a  mainstay of our national economy for decades.

It is creative measures like that which will attract patient investors and impact investors, as well as high net worth entrepreneurs from all over the world to our shores, to set up residence here and live here for at least part of the year, in order to take advantage of the fact that income is not taxed here, and that Ghana also has a low corporate tax rate regime, on top of that.

That is how to harness the intelligence and energy of dynamic human beings to create wealth and jobs in the real economy. Period.

The irritating thing about the philistines who want to govern our country, is that they know the price of everything under the African sun. Yet, they haven't the faintest idea about the value of protecting what is left of our natural heritage - at a time when global climate change is impacting this country so negatively.

Who has ever heard the ever-whining Bawumias talking about climate-change-proofing Ghana's infrastructure, such as  roads, creatively - by building only plastic roads: made by mixing plastic waste with bitumen to build roads that last three times as long as conventional roads; bear  heavier loads; remain pothole-free throughout their long lifespan; and are never washed away by flash floods because plastic is impermeable to water?

Do the doom-mongering Dr. Bawumias not understand the absurdity and futility of pursuing GDP growth, without ever examining what actually constitutes that growth? If they did, they would not give hope to those busy destroying what is left of our natural heritage, and brutally gang-raping Mother Nature, by assuring them that they will "legalize galamsey."

Should all those selfish criminals engaged in illegal gold mining, not rather be prosecuted and jailed, instead of being promised that their criminal activities will be legalised, when the NPP wins power after the elections, I ask?

Are they not decimating the cocoa industry - the very lifeblood of our country and mainstay of the national economy - before our very eyes: as complacent officialdom watches on helplessly with their hands handcuffed by our greedy vampire-elites in the feeble national battle  against illegal gold mining?

The question is why do geniuses like the Bawumias not make that connexion? Is it not because the two corruption-riddled entities that make up the NDC/NPP duopoly are beholden to the wealthy criminal syndicates that sponsor and benefit from most of the illegal gold mining  destroying what is left of our nation's natural heritage with such impunity?

It is their lack of creative thinking that makes genuises like the Bawumias look only to the financial contribution "galamsey" makes to the national economy, and overlook the egregious harm it does to what is left of our natural heritage - the societal underpinning on which the quality of life of all Ghanaians depends:  and the protection and conservation of which will ensure  sustainable economic development that will redound to the benefit of present and future generations,  by providing green pillars to underpin our national economy.

Who has ever heard the loquacious and negative Dr. Bawumias  (imprisoned in the cognitive-straightjacket of "chew-and-pour" rote-learninge) ever talking about global climate change and the imperative need to protect our forests?

And why give Ghanaians false hope about providing them with affordable electricity, when blockheaded  politicians neither have the  nous nor gumption, to focus on planning to switch to 100 percent renewable power with storage, to create off-grid micro-grids nationwide for businesses,  communities and households, to power our national economy - all paid for with helicopter-money from our oil and gas deposits: instead of handing over a million dollars of oil money to each parliamentary constituency annually to be frittered away by cash-hungry political party foot-soldiers?

And who has ever heard the Bawumias - who sadly neither ever do any original-thinking nor lateral thinking -  talking about much-needed land reform,  in which the state takes over all land held in trust by Chiefs for their people, compensates them with long-term government paper - that can be discounted for cash immediately - and redistributes same to tenant farmers and  all those wanting to invest in the agricultural sector nationwide?

Is that not what is actually needed to modernise farming in Ghana? And they want to be given the mandate to govern this country again - when a doer and high-achiever like Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, with a solid track-record of creating wealth that remains in Ghana, who is generating well-paying jobs galore in his private capacity  is offering himself for the presidency? Please.

Yes, Ghanaians need to vote out the corruption-riddled NDC, which has failed to retrieve taxpayers' GHc51 million from that scoundrel Woyome,  from power. However, to replace the corrupt NDC political machine, with the equally corrupt NPP political machine, as the next governing party, will be extremely unwise and perverse on the part of voters. And the height of folly.

Have voters forgotten so soon how unfair it was that as much as U.S.$350 million  went to the E. O. Group, when Tullow Oil bought out stakes Mr. Owusu and Mr Edusei (whom the conspiracy theorists in our midst claim were apparently fronting for our former hypocrite-in-chief - according to bush-telegraph sources at the time) 'owned' in oil blocks off our nation's shores - stakes that should gone to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in the first place, but somehow ended up being given to the opaque and shadowy E. O. Group, during the golden age of business for the perfidious Kufuor & Co?

Was that not handy cash, which should have gone to the national treasury, if the NPP regime at the time had not been so very corrupt?

Does U.S.$350 million not dwarf GHc51 million? So why does the mostly-crooked  and conscienceless Ghanaian media, never make that point too, when baying for the blood of the  super-scoundrel Woyome, one wonders?

If voters make the ghastly mistake of voting yet another NPP  regime into power again, this blog confidently predicts that if elected as the next governing party, in the December presidential and parliamentary elections, paradoxically - because it is now led by a financially incorruptible  politician, the selfless Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, who is in politics to serve, not enrich himself - the next NPP regime will end up becoming the most corrupt administration, ever,  in the chequered history of the confounded 4th Republic.

The blunt refusal by the John Boadus and the Freddie Blays, to publicly publish their assets, and those of their spouses, as well as publicly publish all the sources of the NPP's election campaign funds, is the writing on the wall. Voters had better read their tea leaves properly - and revise their notes accordingly.

The refusal to let Ghanaians know the extent of  their personal net worth - and that of their spouses - and to publicly publish all the sources of their party's election campaign funds, is a harbinger of the egregious high-level corruption to come, when the NPP is elected to power to govern Ghana again after 7th, January, 2017.

If they continue to refuse to publicly publish their own personal assets, and those of their spouses, as well as publicly publish all the sources of their parties' election campaign funds, Ghanaians must  must reject both the NDC and NPP political machines, and the sly and ruthless politicians who run them - otherwise they will only be replacing one kleptocratic group of slippery politicians with another kleptocratic group of empty-promise-making politicians.

For their own good, and to protect their own individual futures, younger generation Ghanaian voters in the December presidential and parliamentary elections, must reject the nation-wrecking machine-politics of the  corruption-riddled NDC/NPP duopoly.

(Incidentally, Dr. Paa Kwesi  Nduom, who was easily the most transparent party leader, amongst the candidates who stood in the 2012 presidential election, is the best bet for Ghana's younger generation. Let them pray that the Supreme Court orders the Electoral Commission to reinstate his candidacy. Amongst all those vying for the presidency,  he is the only candidate who can actually transform Ghana - by forming and leading a government of national unity, made up of the smartest and most honest Ghanaians, from across the political spectrum  - not the corrupt NDC/NPP duopoly and their outmoded,  divisive machine-politics.)

Hmm, Ghana - enti yewieye paa enei: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa!