What At All Is The Matter With Our Hidebound Ruling Elites?

If we are to eradicate abject poverty and create a more equitable society in Ghana, the more responsible sections of the media,  must ensure that  the UN Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs) underpin the governing of our country and the  management of our national economy.

The question then is: What are the UN SDGs? The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially known as Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a set of 17 "Global Goals" with 169 targets between them. ... The proposal contained 17 goals with 169 targets covering a broad range of sustainable development issues.
 
"UN Sustainable Development Goals target number 8.4, under the Goal on “sustainable economic growth,” is focused on improving resource efficiency in consumption and production and decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation."

Those wise words are observations from notes of a speech given by  Charles Arden-Clark, Head of Secretariat, Ten Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (10YFP), UN Environment - that subsequently appeared in a blog post.

He goes on further to say: "The positioning of this target in this Goal has broad implications for economic policy making, for overall development objectives and within key economic sectors."

Those SDGs are the justification for those of us who argue that if Thailand could earn U.S.$71 billion from 31 million visitors (in 2016), then it makes far better sense to focus on ecotourism anchored on what is left of our nation's natural heritage as the driver for sustainable development in the Ghanaian countryside - than to allow our natural environment to be trashed by a powerful and greedy few at society's cost.

With respect, it is shortsighted in the extreme, to give mining companies from China carte blanche to come and destroy what is left of our nation's priceless natural heritage, mining sundry minerals, in exchange for U.S.$19 billion, and then turn around to clap for ourselves and pat each other's backs for being brilliant and creative thinkers who have come up with a "new paradigm" for raising money to develop Ghana with. Some joke.

With respect, such an atrocious deal, which will end up destroying our country's priceless forests as sure as day follows night, is not a "new paradigm" to raise funds for developing our country with. Vice-President Dr. Bawumia & Co need to bone up on the ideas being propagated by the Positive Money advocay groups in the UK and New Zealand as well as the International Movement for Monetary Reform (IMMR).

A much more sensible option, in the humble view of this blog, is to simply ban the export of unrefined gold and encourage private-sector entities - and the state-owned Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) - to seek joint-venture partners to build gold refineries in Ghana and produce credit-card-sized gold bars and gold coins with Adinkra symbols on them, for sale to the world.

By so doing,  could we not turn Ghana into a global gold marketing centre, and thus create an outbound ecotourism market here for tens of millions of tourists from China and the rest of Asia - who will doubtless travel here regularly to purchase those selfsame credit-card-sized gold bars and Adinkra gold coins: and  enable our country to earn billions of dollars that stays in Ghana instead of flowing out of it - and create millions of jobs and micro-entrepreneurial opportunities for our younger generations? Haaba.

Some of us are getting fed up with such calcified thinking. Our leaders must put their thinking caps on for a change.

Not too long ago our ruling elites  were criss-crossing Ghana selling the idea of a 40-year national development plan for our nation- that all governing political parties apparently would have to adhere to  -  in an age when disruption by the advances in digital technology is resulting in  changes in the way we live and work exponentially. Incredible.

After the absurd 40-year national development plan has been quietly shelved, thank goodness, now - in the age of 3-D printing - we are busy yet again setting about implementing a 1-factory-1-district initiative as the basis for the  industrialisation of our homeland Ghana:  at precisely the  point in time when the astonishing advances in 3-D printing technology is poised to decimate factories around the globe: as artificial intelligence and machine learning inexorably lead to an era when  robots take over all manner of jobs. Amazing.

The question is : What at all is the matter with our hidebound vampire-elites - can't they do any original thinking that benefits ordinary Ghanaians at all? Ebeeii.