Late last year, I listened to Dr. Tony Oteng-Gyasi’s address at the UG Alumni lecture. While he talked about the issues of the Ghanaian economy, I couldn’t help but think through the many problems that plague our great nation. Yes, Ghana is great, even if we don’t feel that now.
I could only summarise these into two main traits; traits which I believe are lacking in our nation’s fabric, and causing us great harm to the generations ahead. Integrity and Excellence.
Integrity
We have often heard many politicians who have either spoken half-truths or blatantly lied while on official duties, or even under oath. But you know, It’s not just politicians that run our nation: I mean, do they even finance their elections themselves?
It’s the average Ghanaian. For a country that professes at least 60% Christianity, it’s a shame that we find ourselves in this situation. True Christianity would have proven otherwise.
So how does integrity affect our nation poorly? From cutbacks on government projects, to diverting COVID-19 funds into private coffers, the seemingly small actions quickly add up, not causing projects to be delivered, and denying service to people who actually need them. For instance, how can government be owing hotels after spending so much on organising these All African games?
If we had a whole sitting president launch a campaign towards “Zero Tolerance for Corruption” 20 years ago, this must be a pretty serious issue.
While writing this article, the latest news of today is that the Ghana Meteorological Agency has acquired “22 motorcycles valued at GHC253,000 for GHC1,656,000,” while it is notable that one motorcycle of that type does not cost GHC 75,272. What country are we building? Of all the critical equipment that the agency may need, funds are inflated for purchases?
Let’s take the case of 1 District 1 Factory. This brilliant initiative — yes, the initiative is commendable — has suffered woefully because government officials have not been truthful about the scale of impact, and the award of contracts. In some cases, the factories have been “abandoned, some employing far less than the government claims”.
On the Wikipedia page of the initiative, there is only 1 factory which has any detail about its operations. Only 1, 1 out of 275. And this is what you see when you visit the initiative’s website.
Excellence
And you know, even the definition of integrity commands a sense of excellence, because being honest will require going all lengths to make sure the right thing is done, which in itself is the beginning of the pursuit of excellence.
We are used to hearing that Ghanaians don’t have a maintenance culture, and this is a evidence of the lack of excellence. When projects are executed, they are mostly done in a hurry in response to some news item, or towards elections. In the rush, roads are quickly and poorly done, school buildings are poorly built and even government programs are hurriedly initiated so that they can be mentioned as part of the government’s “successes”.
Recently, we have been inundated with issues relating to the sale of SSNIT-operated hotels, and the contracts surrounding the maintenance of state-operated ambulances. In the SSNIT case, I have a simple question: Why does it have to take a change in management to a private entity for institutions to work, and how is it that hotels that are currently making losses are expected to have a turnaround when it’s the same Ghanaians who are working there?
Before anyone criticises this for being one-sided, there’s a whole article on GhanaWeb listing 8 scandals all related to integrity during the previous administration. This thing has been running in Ghana for a while.
In the example Dr. Oteng-Gyasi narrated about the Obuasi mine, the “incompetence” and “complicity” could be traced to a lack of integrity and excellence of board members in fulfilling their national duties as concerning the mine.
And yes, in some cases in our nation, it’s been sheer negligence and malice, but I assure you, building integrity and excellence into our national identity will take us farther than we even aspire to. It will also require more from us.
I could talk a lot more about these two traits that I believe are at the helm of our woes as a nation.
After you read this, I implore you to assess all the failures of governance, and they’ll probably fall between these two.