If you live long enough, you will make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you will be a better person.- Bill Clinton
T.S. Elliot has noted that, “there is no greater treason than to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” We have a local version, “wo nti”, where the cost or quality of services are pretended to be sacrificed because of the supposed bond or relationship between seller/service provider and buyer/customer or beneficiary. Usually it is claimed that services are of a higher quality but lower in price due to the one involved, “wo nti”.
In our recent past, a number of productive and functional decisions have been taken, but for the wrong reasons. Those decisions include the National Youth Employment Programme, now re-named the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), which was intended to provide the youth with working experience, but which was turned into a haven of patronage for party loyalist.
One may recollect the incidence involving journalists in the Upper East Region who were alleged to have been placed on the GYEEDA as a ruse to write laudatory articles and appear on radio to defend the policies and programmes of the government.
In 2008, there was an amendment to the Road Traffic Law, which provided for fines rather than custodial sentences for drivers who committed road traffic offences. Apparently, some unscrupulous police personnel and their counterparts in the judiciary connived and charged huge fines which most drivers could not pay, ending with their imprisonment.
There were agitations from drivers but little or nothing was done until after the first round of the presidential election that year. When it became clear that some of the courts acted ultra vires and exacted punishment beyond their powers, an act which meant that the convicts should be released, they remained in custody.
However, after the results pointed to a second round, the office of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the judiciary started to undo the wrong which should not have occurred. The act of releasing those wrongfully jailed was in itself the right deed. The reason for it was, however, wrong- to garner votes.
For sometime between 2010 and 2012, there were regular advertisements on radio about the labour intensive road maintenance programme. The advertisements focused on the Mankessim - Fante Nyankumasi road. That there was a project employing the youth in meaningful work for their decent and economic livelihood, was in itself a good idea. However, the objective of the advertisement was to suggest that the government was doing well in road maintenance.
Even the recent hullabaloo about the government’s sponsorship of pilgrims to Jerusalem was a right deed. However, the reason that the government was doing that because some private individuals had decided to provide sponsorship to the government, was a wrong reason. It meant that the government did not consider the venture worthy of state sponsorship, yet a public office was used to promote the enterprise.
All these diatribes are intended to serve as the ‘mmoguo’, in the legendary ‘Anansesem’, to the recent issue about the investment of GH¢15 million by the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) in guinea fowl and the sudden diffusion of television documentary about the Asongtaba Guinea Fowl project.
Those of us who have ever lived in the northern regions have no doubt about the economic importance of the guinea fowl, just like shea nut, to the people in those regions. In recent times, the incidence of roasted guinea fowls being sold whole has made some otherwise unemployed youth economically productive.
However, if in reaction to a question asked on the floor of Parliament, as to whether the amount invested in the venture was worthwhile, all that could be shown is the documentary we have been exposed to on our television screens, then it is not worth it.
The day after the story broke, I listened to Alhaji Gilbert Iddi, a fine gentleman and noted agriculturist, express dismay at the turn of events. He explained that SADA had entered into a joint venture with Asongtaba and that involved the development of the guinea fowl across the five regions of the Upper East, Upper West, Northern, Brong Ahafo and Volta.
Alhaji Iddi pointed out that the new company was in the process of establishing hatcheries and processing plants in all of the five regions. The objective is to move away from the traditional method of rearing guinea fowls.
It meant that, the hatcheries would breed the fowls, give them out early to the farmers- as it happens with chickens- and, subsequently, buy the grown-up guinea fowls to be slaughtered and processed by the company.
In the face of this explanation, the response is not a documentary on the existing Asongtaba farms. The focus should have been the sites being prepared for the hatcheries and processing plants across the five regions, the interaction with farmers in preparation for the take-off of the project and statistics about the number of people likely to benefit from the projects.
Instead, we are shown only one farm repeatedly, over and over again. As is common, if there were many farms, as well as outgrowers, the documentary would have spanned a variety of images to represent the success of the project. The fact that the same scenes were shown over and over again created more doubt about the returns on the investment. Those who know the project as it has been, until the SADA partnership, have not been shown anything new.
Therefore, the documentary on the guinea fowl project, as portrayed, is a disservice to those who dreamt the concept. Maybe, in the haste to counter the wrong impression created that the money was not being productively employed, the documentary failed to consider the boomerang effect.
Definitely, a guinea fowl developmental project, if effectively carried out, could transform the lives of the people in no mean way just like the Grameen Bank has done in Bangladesh. It started with single fowls, now millions of otherwise unemployed people have decent means of economic livelihood. The guinea fowl project could empower those in the beneficiary regions, but until it takes off, it must be packaged more meaningfully and realistically to have appeal.
The way that the guinea fowl project documentary is running suggests and portrays yet another right deed undertaken for the wrong reasons, not because it has potential for the people, but because those asking questions as to the value of returns in the investment must be put to shame.
We must all support the guinea fowl project because its benefit cannot be quantified if implemented with dedication, commitment and selflessness.
Article by Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh
