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We deserve to let our heads down

 

Christmas is a time for merry-making and the New Year should be welcome with joy.  I pity the young of today!  They eat rice and chicken every day; something most of us eat on special days.

Yet I pity them because I find their lives lack that spontaneity of action and freedom of spirit which were relished in my young and innocent days.  

The grown ups complain about the economy which curbs their ability to live as they see it done on foreign and local television.  

It is human to complain and moan.  And I pity those who pine to live like others.  

We need times like Christmas and the New Year to forget our silly concerns and let our heads down.  

We should at this time forget the problems of the moment and hope for a better future.

But how can the future be better if we let our brains down with our heads? We should end the festivities with a resolution to think, examine ourselves and decide to do better.  

The future is in our hands provided we face facts, think and resolve to fashion a future for ourselves and for our nation.

As a nation we seem to have lost much of our self-confidence.  We are glad when others say our economy is doing well even when we continue begging and rely greatly on outside support to make ends meet.  

Deep down we do not believe that we can do it and we tend to copy thoughtlessly.  We want to be like others.

A Ghanaian, now a professor in the United States, called on me the other day to discuss some developments in culture.  

I asked whether she watched a programme which partially discussed an aspect of the matter we explored.  She said she did not listen to the local stations.  I asked why.

“It is difficult to follow what they say”.  She was right.  Many of our readers are terrible.  The affectation is loathsome.  

We have our Gifty Antis and Shika Acquayes.  We understand what they say.  Our Dwomohs work on BBC and when they speak you know this is a Ghanaian but you understand them.  

So let us stop this ridiculous affectation.  The matter is serious.  Listeners, especially the youth, follow the news and other readers and if we want to improve the official language we should insist on standards in the spoken and written word in the media.  

There should be examination for news readers.  A parallel requirement is that news items and announcements should be carefully written.  Bad drafting is often not helpful to the readers.

The year ended with the Merchant Bank saga and the Mandela story.  We should learn from these events.  With regard to the Merchant Bank, attention has been focused on its sale to a company which is said to have no banking experience.  


Many sniff corruption.  The matter is before the courts and I see a difficult task for the judges to question decisions of the responsible authorities.  But we Ghanaians should take the opportunity to question the role of Directors in Government companies and institutions.  We should stop irresponsibility and corruption at its roots.

Are companies and institutions established with government money (which means your money) to be left to friends, party contributors and lackeys to manage as they like and thereby make life more difficult instead of better for us?

We should first establish firmly why Merchant Bank is being sold.  If the lack of competence or diligence by the Directors is responsible, they should be taken to task in accordance with the Companies Code.

Now SSNIT has put the citizens’ insurance which will yield pension into the Merchant Bank.  It has become a substantial shareholder.  What steps did it take to ensure that the citizens’ money is safeguarded? If this money vanishes, pensions will be affected.  

Therefore SSNIT has a great responsibility with regard to Merchant Bank.  There are talks about government’s role and control of SSNIT.  The legal mumbo-jumbo should stop.  

The responsibility of SSNIT should be clearly defined to avoid unnecessary government interference. Social Security contributors should be represented on its board.

With regard to the death of Mandela there is a lot to think about and to examine.  In the first place, comparison between Nkrumah and Mandela is unnecessary and unhelpful.

Perhaps it arose because of a statement alleged to have been made by our President – as announced by BBC.  It appears that we have greatly deteriorated in preparing official drafts for the President.  

In Nkrumah’s day, a draft about Mandela’s death would be prepared by competent officials and considered by the President.  As Mandela was on the death bed for a long time, there was no excuse for the absence of a draft.  

In any case, with the electronic media, there was no problem in flashing drafts from Accra to the President’s temporary abode.  

A great gap in the administrative structure was revealed.   An examination of procedures was also revealed by the alleged refusal of President Nkrumah to meet Mandela when he visited Ghana in 1962.  

The question of Nkrumah snubbing Mandela never arose.  In those days, as in most well-structured countries, the President was not seen by unidentified people.  Ghana Ambassadors will tell you that most of them see the Head of State only when they present their credentials.

To see President Nkrumah in those days, ambassadors in Ghana went through the Foreign Ministry and even I could sometimes satisfy them to the point that they did not see the President who had a tight well laid-down schedule.  

At that time, any Tom, Dick and Harry could not walk to Flagstaff House or the Castle to see the President.

In the case of freedom-fighters, as Cameron Duodu stated, it was A.K. Barden who had the key.  Barden was in charge of the Bureau of African Affairs established by George Padmore.  It handled non-independent African countries and freedom-fighters.  

With regard to South Africa, there were two groups of Freedom Fighters – The Pan African Congress (PAC) and the African National Congress (ANC).  Ghana favoured the PAC because it strongly supported the principle of “Armed Struggle”.  

By the time Mandela visited Ghana, things had greatly changed and some of us felt that Ghana should deal with both groups even-handedly.  But Barden who was in charge felt otherwise and the intelligence he controlled reported accordingly.

What we should therefore think about and examine is the nature and authenticity of our intelligence and the competence of those in charge of such delicate institutions.

Unfortunately, we do not keep good records and much of what we collected is lost.  But we cannot ignore what happened and why they happened.  Bosomtwi-Sam, who worked with Barden for a long time, is around but old.  

We need the reports and comments of such stalwarts to assess what happened and chart a better future.

It does not do the image of Ghana much good to recall that Nkrumah’s friend Genevova Marais gave dinner to Mandela while the great leader of African Unity, Kwame Nkrumah, did not see the future emancipation of apartheid South Africa.

The New Year resolution and plans which follow Christmas should be based on deep reflection.  It should lead to great commitment for the common good.  That is the only way of moving forward.  That is the only justification for letting our heads down at least once a year.

 

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