Advertisement
The interesting politics of bonds in Ghana
Today, I will write about things which stick in the mind long after the time they were made by public men and women, and how deeply they have affected us since then.
Concerning our Vice President, the officiating clergyman, the Most Rev. Titus Awotwi-Pratt, now retiring as the Presiding Bishop of the church, said two things which stuck in my mind and still lingers on. Most Rev. Pratt said that the late Vice President Amissah-Arthur was an ‘’icon of decency and discipline’’ as a high-ranking public servant and that the lives and deeds of such exemplary citizens ‘’lubricate our lives today.’’
Last week, I put my views across concerning the presidential idea of this country having a national cathedral for national Christian religious services, and was pleasantly surprised by the vitriol in my inbox the following days.
Apparently, some of us are stuck to the religious society of European states in the early Christian era to the Middle Ages which effectively ended with the Reformation and the emergence of Protestant denominations. I must repeat that I am unfazed by such unctuous religious bigotry.
Bond
But not a day passes by these days without some headline-commanding news which gets us all animatedly involved discussing, supporting, damning and all else in our politics.
This is normal though it enrages some of us unnecessarily. I do remember clearly last year our President Nana Akufo-Addo
None of these changes have happened yet, more than a year after the proposal and the back and forth in the public square. It is safe to say that no matter the loudness and certainty surrounding some proposals and promises, they would not see the light of day.
I believe that it would be same
The economics of this proposal alone
The importance of this observation is in my memory bank. In 1980 during the President Limann regime of the 3rd Republic, a symposium on the first budget of Finance Minister Prof. George Benneh was held at the auditorium of the
You have to remember this was at the height of the Cold War and this was a loaded question directed at the rightist party in Ghana and predecessor of the current ruling New Patriotic Party of the 4th Republic. JH simply and swiftly responded; ‘’the long term is a series of short terms,’’ to cheers from the audience.
U-turn?
The relevance of these examples is that at the vetting of the Senior Minister early last year, he spent some time debunking the logicality of the 40-year development plan for Ghana as proposed by the outgoing National Planning and Development Commission of Dr Nii Moi Thompson. Mr Osafo-Marfo claimed vigorously that such
Obviously, two things come to mind immediately. The need for infrastructure on which alone accelerated development can rest is now an indisputable fact in development thinking and perspectives. Secondly, this acceptance represents an abandonment without apology to Ghanaians of the fervent NPP
For the wittily wicked, one may point out the considerable commissions paid out to selected actors in any such huge financial engineering that attract the vultures in our politics. Fifty billion dollars is no chicken feed everywhere on this planet so the pickings would be similarly huge.
Thirdly and most importantly, why does President Akufo-Addo and the ruling NPP believe that infrastructure built by them will not and cannot suffer the same electoral reception by Ghanaians?
A bond open to both local and foreign investors is of double certainty a loan contracted by a government which declared on the rooftops that all necessary monies for development could be found in Ghana, and there is
It would be convenient for purposes of analysis to ask how current the plans of government regarding planning would be in 2050, for example, only 32 years hence and a third of the distance. The whole idea sounds so fanciful that detailed analysis may result in ridiculous assertions.
I will only advise the NPP to take the 1980 admonition of JH Mensah, plan very short term, execute successfully, and they will naturally in the passage of time, flow into a development structure that will satisfy voters and improve our livelihoods.
My readers will notice I made no reference to American concerns and Chinese ingenuity because in reality, our development is not about them but us. Our lies will not lubricate any lives.