Do not index
Do not index
Opinions are like noses. We all got one. Here’s ours:
The media is not doing a quality job at educating the population, everyday, consistently, on the depth of quagmire the Ghana government seeks to camouflage as the “only way out” of its fiscal mess.
The people voted to “manage” the affairs of the land have thrown their hands in the air in hope of salvation from above. Their apparent delusion, which is now being paraded as the effects of a global meltdown that’s found its way into the economics of Ghana, has somehow lost its trending edge – we’re wiser now.
This editorial piece throws more light on the darkness the government hopes you soon forget. We won’t allow you to.
Ghana And IMF
It is no news that our beloved country Ghana is free forever from colonization. The all-charismatic Nkrumah screaming on the top of his voice chanted his freedom speech atop the crowd that cool March 1957 evening somewhere in Accra. 65 years later, that freedom is quite questionable – yet that is not our focus today.
My interest today is that this same beloved country, is not free from debt. Before you start off with “…but every country owes” hear me out.
A country goes for a loan to cushion its economy especially when the country has been hit with a crisis. Keyword, crisis. Which in Ghana’s case, the government may say this crisis is COVID, or even the flimsy excuse of a global economic meltdown brought on by the Russian-Ukrainian war. Don’t get me wrong it may make sense until you pay attention to the fact that during COVID, the government received a lot of money. I mean, a lot. Economists estimate global donor inflows attuning to $1B; – the world suddenly finds the money to “help” when it matters – from World Institutions, NGOs, etc. and so we can’t be cock sure that funds were also taken from the country’s coffers to help with the crisis during and after the pandemic.
I’ve tried to wrap my head around the reason why our leaders keep going back to IMF, yet the reasons seem to beat my imagination. Granted, I’m a lay-person. Unschooled in the higher workings of national economic gearings, that debt drives our world. In short, banks need people to owe, otherwise there’s no “potential difference” for the electricity of money to flow. Yet (a big YET) for how long will we keep being in debt to IMF? Every Ghana government’s (regime notwithstanding) constant engagement with the IMF is one clear epitome of how indebted we are mentally.
What exactly are these leaders, past and present, using these loans for that they keep going one too many times. Wasn’t the first or second time enough, couldn’t they have put that money into good use so that we pay off the debt, cushion the economy, and still have enough not to go back for another. We forget too soon how Ghana has repeatedly been unable to continue servicing its accumulated debts.
Going for more then has never been an answer.
A question for the gods (of money): Where did all those funds received as COVID donations go?
If you join the deceitful choir opine that it was converted into food packages for people who needed it during the COVID lockdowns, I will reach through this screen and smack your lying lips. I didn’t see no food packages. And believe me when I say this; take half of those funds the government received and buy every Ghanaian a large pack of Papaye fried rice, there’ll be balance. A lot of it.
Someone quipped that Ghanaians have the shortest memories, and that we forget too soon the evil done us. I don’t support this. Rather, we’re softies, afraid of confrontation, except when it’s a sponsored political talk show on Joy FM by politicians barking nonsense at each other. Nobody cares that those put in charge of us repeatedly mismanage resources at their disposals and nothing happens to them. No-one.
The important questions like; “Even on IMF’s life support, the economy has constantly performed appallingly. Why?” seem to elude all who matter. The Minister of Finance (cousin to the President) is said to be doing “everything possible” to revive this economy and in his grandest Yale-educated ingenuity proposed the most flamboyant solution: Let’s take loans which will render as in-debted. Such a big contradiction of theory!
As a well educated finance person, isn’t he supposed to have other ideas? Even I could have thought of this, and I am not even trying to do his job for him. If he is indeed as educated as we all perceive he should be, then he should be the best at this work of cushioning an economy in the least, if not to revive it. The Akuffo-Addo government led by the Finance Minister, faced with the unsustainability of public expenditure has reversed earlier decisions not to return to the IMF for a bailout. Why should such a person still be at post. He should be retired! – oh, we tried that. The Akyem Cabal withstood us all.
In my opinion, we celebrate our leaders too soon. They’re all winging it, and his (Ofori-Atta) expertise is overrated, if it exists at all.
Ghana’s Listless Media Can Do More
The optics are clear. Since identifying as a online editorial publication, NoMonkeyTales is in effect a media organisation, so I’ll be measured in my outbursts.
While various exemptions exist in the media collective tag, everyone’s guilty. We’re swayed by trending news and populist agenda. Case in point, turn on your TV, I’ll bet a million Cedis no-one’s tasking the government on this IMF conversation. It was March-April discussion. We’ve all moved on. The new issues? Assin-North by-elections, music artistes look-a-likes, Yvonne Nelson’s new book, among others.
The country is in a dire situation and the media has the power to make a change. They, We, must educate the public on the governments’ activities and how it affects the country. The media has the power to enlighten the government if they are ignorant of the consequences of their actions, and is a powerful tool for shaping both ends of governance, but not ours – the news outlets in our beloved country have more important things to do. Gossips!
With the aforementioned in mind, corruption is at the deep root of everything I stated. Corruption isn’t just something in the country but Africa as a whole. Many African leaders are so corrupt that their citizens are at wits end – Recently, Senegal’s President was mobbed by citizens he encountered in France for poor governance and bad policies that had destroyed his country. Why are you in France Mr President? Go back home and fix our country.
I am not in any way encouraging the violence from the citizens, yet their frustrations deserve to be highlighted. Ghanaians don’t need violence. But our voice must be heard. This is why I believe in advocacy! Yes, social media advocates are doing their best but talking about an issue once, and only when its trending, is not enough to curb the issue. Our leaders need to do better, do right by us, and we must echo this till something changes.
I’m holding back my comments on gross abuse of executive power that the government’s debt restructuring program and the 5th December 2022 two-week deadline it gave for creditors to sign away billions of Cedis of asset value, in the prep-up for this IMF loan program was. That’s another day’s conversation. It leaves me livid.
The apparent heartlessness of the state rulers to the pleas of the citizens, and their wanton wealth-amassing escapades while the citizens suffer is detestable! Ghana’s in-between a rock and a hard place; everyone knows that the real difference between the ruling NPP and the ousted NDC is a hair’s width. It doesn’t exist. Ghanaians require fresh, new government options. – We need our own Peter Obi!
The Covid Funding (and subsequent disappearance) represent, undoubtedly, the largest single transfer of wealth from government coffers into the pockets of Ghanaian political/private people in a single season. At least in my living memory. The political landscape should know that there’s a spiralling loss of confidence in our rulers, and that they won’t be here forever to spend all that money and they will be judged when the time comes.
I leave you with this thought: Money is a good thing but when acquired at the expense of the citizenry then there’s a big question mark.
"The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." (Proverbs 22:7)
Written by
wanna-be editor of his own newspaper