2009 has hit Ghana, as has the final election result from the presidential run-off between the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate, Nana Addo Akufuo Addo, and the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) runner Professor John Evan Atta Mills. With one final constituency to vote on January 2nd the political nemeses were neck to neck, but with NPP calling for a boycott from the Tain constituency vote as a protest against electoral regularities (meaning they knew the hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of winning), the former Internal Revenue Service Head Prof. Mills succeeded in gaining the leadership post – a matter of being 3rd time lucky, as he had previously being defeated in 2000 and 2004 by outgoing NPP president John Kufuor.
Fears remain amongst NPP supporters as to whether Jerry Rawlings, the former military dictator (1979, 1982-92) and civilian leader (1992-2000) will have a major influence on Atta-Mills NDC regime.
The President-elect will receive the keys to the new US$37.5 million presidential palace in Accra on January 7th, built on the former site of Independence leader and Pan-Africanist Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's HQ (overthrown by military coup in 1966 after being in power for 9 years). Sprayed in gold it is a typically indulgent elitist project which has squandered vast sums of taxpayers money.
Ok, enough politics. No matter who is in power, the students of the Dept. of Social Welfare vocational training school at Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre haven't a prayer of getting access to their statutory right to grants to aid them start their own small business ventures. Basic resources like sewing machines are in need of repair and pleas have to be made at every corner to ensure that there will be sufficient food in the coming semesters so that the school can re-open. But Ghana's political elite will bask in a gold-sprayed edifice and dine with cutlery sets that could probably fund one of the talented students here for the coming 12 months. Sympathy from readers, whether their pockets are deep or not, will not solve the 'begging syndrome' which is an inevitable result of being desperate for funds here.
And yet there is not a whisper of dissent to be heard from the church, trade unions, students, media or civil society at large at this evident waste of money on one building for one man his entourage. Yes, we all know, the Ghanaian politicians aspire for Ghana to be a 1st world country by 2025 and inviting world leaders to a roadside chop bar will not do anything for poitical or economic prestige. It's all about keeping up appearances. Ghanaian politicians, through the UN Millenium Development Goals, are still hoping to eliminate poverty and ensure primary education for all, abolish the high infant mortiality rates, etc. etc. etc.
Forgive my economic immaturity and mathematical dumbness, but investing almost US$40 million in a time of global financial hardship (albeit the project was commissioned some years ago, that is, when Ghana's economic outlook was far more negative) doesn't seem like the best way to go about achieving these targets. Many of these grand proclamations of poverty and infant mortality reduction, gender equality, disease control, global cooperation and development expansion are testimony to the distance the elite find themselves from those on the grassroots level. GDP, GNP rates are inhuman economic indicators that often miss the true human picture of how people continue to struggle to better themselves against overwhelming odds. Yet they are the acronyms that are often quoted throughout the media that Ghana is a beacon of light in the midst of a 'heart of darkness' (Yip, I had to put in some Conrad- afterall, I am writing about Africa, remember).
Whether it is our local porridge/omelette seller or tyre dealer who will likely never gain access to credit to improve their small businesses if they wished to do so. Whether it is the sprawling masses of child labourers (e.g. kayayee girls) who flee rural villages crucified with agricultural productivity deprivation due to World Bank and International Monetary fund stipulations that the State cut subsidies for farm machinery, irrigation schemes, etc. Whether it is the elderly churchgoer who gives her hard-earned pesewas to exploitative self-styled evangelists, pastors, and prophets who poverty preach, rant and rave in tongues. I just wish the Pentecost did actually descend one day and show those who use the facilities at this Centre the difference between a shower room and a toilet. Maybe then they would find divine inspiration to walk the extra 4 metres and stop pissing in the washing facility.
All in all, I hold out little will change under the governance of the NDC. Solutions that will be advantageous for those on the bottom rung are hard envision when spending exorbitant amounts of money on a presidential palace is welcomed as a grand symbol of national pride and achievement. It appears to me, that it rather perfectly symbolises the growing gap between rich and poor in this country.
Or maybe I will be proved wrong, and as I write contingents of labourers from Anglo Ashanti goldmines in Obouasi are being organised to spraypaint every Ghanaian State centre for the disabled with gold?
Time will reveal all as to whether my grunts of anger transpire to be true or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment