Sitting Ghana Down Around the Common Fireside
I think the time has
come for Ghana to organise a conclave in which the good and mighty of this
country will be locked in a dark room until white smoke, signaling the solution
to our problems, comes out of the chimney. This thought struck me with such
force last Tuesday, and because it was my birthday I went all mystical and
began to believe, prophet-like that it was a divinely inspired message from
God. However, divine or not, I think we ought to convene a Grand National
Convention or Ndaba, as such gatherings are known in Zulu and its related
languages in Southern Africa.
I had planned an idyllic
evening - watching football with a glass of chilled something - without
thinking of the rather fragile state of electricity supply in the country, and
naturally my area was plunged into darkness at the most inopportune time. I
decided to listen to Citi FM, which normally relays a very lively football
broadcast from the UK, but on this occasion the station was re-broadcasting a
Roundtable on the budget which it had organised in the morning. I am happy I
listened to that instead of the football match.
The Citi FM programme
brought home to me vividly two related notions that can no longer be denied.
The first is that this country is not in a good shape, and two is that no one
party or group of people can dig us out of the current mess; it needs all of us
in a major national heave-ho to get us to where we want to be. Any further
denials, recrimination, politicization and blaming will amount to a death
sentence without reprieve. I kid not; neither am I exaggerating. The Citi FM
discussion brought together the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, his
opposite number in Parliament on the Minority side, as well as civil society
and research groups. As expected, Dr. Akoto Osei, the Shadow Minister tore into
the budget and wondered how the huge deficit posted in it can be filled. The
frightening bit is that the Minister did not appear convinced by his own words
that things can get better soon.
There comes a moment in
history when the normal ways of doing things are no longer sufficient and
extraordinary measures are required because the nature of the beast requires
it. We have reached such a point. To be able to reach such thinking demands
rigorous jump from one set of beliefs to another, possibly one that is the
exact opposite of the creed into which one was born. This is what is normally
referred to as a leap of faith. This is now a requirement of our politicians if
they are to be relevant to our purposes at the moment.
The budget presented
recently by the government shows a huge deficit created mostly by fiscal
overruns and a huge structural tilt towards salary payments and other forms of
recurrent expenditure, but the evidence is all around and has been for quite
some years now. For example, probably no government ministry, department or
agency has been paid anywhere near two-thirds of its budget allocation for the
past several years now, and the problem has become worse with some departments
not having received any operational funding for about one year now. In simple
terms this means that people are being pad without working. The problem appears
to have been worsened by a situation in which departments and agencies that
have no accountable outputs have been shown to have swallowed large chunks of
our national income at the expense of areas we would rather spend the money on
such as health and education.
As we have known since
1992, the budget deficit rises every election year and reduces within the next
three years until the next election cycle begins. The trouble is that the
deficit as a percentage of the national cake grows every time and shows no sign
of slowing. To make matters worse, until this last election year, the previous
deficits were accounted for by capital expenditure, that is, “projects” such as
new infrastructure and repairs. In that sense, it could be argued that the
election years deficits brought some physical benefits to communities in the
country. This year, the deficit has not brought any such infrastructure but
appears to have been gulped down by the rapacious appetites of recurrence, that
is, salaries and allowances.
The single spine salary
structure has been fingered as the single biggest villain of the plot, but this
is an absurd charge. The amount of money required to pay for the single spine
was not a secret, or was the government not aware of its potential impact?
Therefore, although it is reasonable to blame the new salary structure for the
rise in the cumulative sum the government has to pay in salaries and allowances
but it cannot be blamed for the budget overrun or the election year deficit.
Now, no matter where the blame lies, the issue can no longer be swept under the
carpet; to fall on another cliché, we need to tackle the bull by the horns.
How are we going to do
this? The conventional wisdom is to heap the blame on the party in power and
leave it to find a way out of the crisis. In this scenario, the opposition,
however it is defined, will not play any constructive role but will snap at the
heels of the government hoping it will stumble and fall. In normal times that
is par for the course in any democracy. We are not in normal times. The other
route is to call on all forces to get together to try and find a way. This is
how governments talk but not how they walk. The task facing all of us is to get
everyone to walk the talk of unity and cooperation.
We know in advance that
any proposal for a serious national convention will be rebuffed by the NDC
because no party in power will accept that there is a crisis. The NPP may also
reject the idea because any honest effort to meet the challenges together will
mean sharing their ideas instead of undermining the government with them. This
means that the national convention must be organised by civil society,
including the media, community organisations and faith-based groups. The
rationale for calling for such an Ndaba stems from the reasonable belief that
among our 24 million Ghanaians we ought to find solutions to our problems. I
have to explain that I am not calling for a Union government – that term leaves
a bad taste in many mouths; I am calling for a convention in which citizens
come together to think about specific problems in specific contexts without any
preconditions and prejudices.
No one political party
is responsible for the mess because its trail goes deep into the thinning
recesses of history. No one party or group alone can resolve it. Indeed, we
ought to remember that political parties do not have a monopoly of solutions
and the current situation is too critical to leave to politicians alone to
resolve. During these difficult times even a dedicated ostrich will have to
admit that the inside of a hot pile of sand is no place to hide one’s head. It
is better to come out and face the music.
SHELF LIFE
JUJU, MAGIC AND
WITCHCRAFT IN AFRICAN SOCCER – Myth or Reality is a book written by a man who
is vocationally qualified to explore this intriguing theme. The author, Francis
J Botchway is both an ordained Presbyterian Minister and a trained journalist.
He is now the editor of the Presbyterian newspaper, the Christian Messenger.
For this book he interviewed scores of people from inside football, including
players, coaches and officials and the foreword is written by veteran
sportswriter and former Deputy Minister of Sports Mr. Joe Aggrey.
The book is available
in several bookshops and also from the autor (0275 480 441)
kgapenteng.blogspot.com
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