My heart breaks and is filled with so much pain when day in day out, the news is flooded with incidents of pupils sitting/lying on the floor in very dilapidated class room facilities (this is not too far off, as my mother heads a school in Bolgatanga township and not a village, whose pupils sit on the floor as at today), broken bridges, flooded roads and pupils have to swim across to other communities to attend school.
People struggling and traveling miles just to find portable drinking water ends up with somewhat contaminated and unsafe water, poor hospitals facilities, patients either sitting or standing to receive drips in hospitals, pregnant women give birth on bear floors, so much graduate unemployment leading to the recent uncountable social vices heard off, (robbing of bullion vans, mobile money vendors, killings for money rituals), Nabco employees not being paid for over four months, Just to mention but a few… And yet the wastage is just unthinkable.
“First lady and second lady of the current presidential spouses could be receiving about $3,500 (GH¢ 21,000) which is to be back-dated to 2017”, amounting to GH¢ 7.4M- why not beginning from now, at the approval of the said allowances? And do they need that much?
Again, such a Luxurious Loan to MPs for cars; which MP will say that he/she does not have a car? How many cars does one need to have? Why live in such luxury at the expense of the people who gave you the mandate to lead them?
And talking about the loan facility, must a loan to the government which is less risky be that expensive? Should not risk and reward be more in line? The MPs are paying cedi equivalent of the principal while interest accrues and is owed at 8.5%USD. In year 2, the interest 8.5% will be on 8.5% of the principal. And again, government will pick up any shortfalls caused by cedi vs USD devaluation.
Over a four year period how much of a shortfall is that? Then we will be crying over the falling value of the cedi against the USD in no time.
Not to mention the millions of Ghana cedis that falls in the drain to judgement debts out of leadership negligence, the most recent analysis by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) exposing a 8.9mk paid out as judgement debt over two decades.
It is sad how cash flows from our dwindling natural resources being the backbone of our economic support is wasted and swept down the drain when the masses gnash in anguish, poverty, and desperation.
Using debt is not necessarily bad when the funds are invested to create enough sustainable economic activity to repay the debt. Useful infrastructure, investment in education and health facilities, employment opportunities historically produce far bigger gains for everybody. Yet our debt accruals go into fulfilling greedy egoistic and insensitive desires.
I say this is a shame! And an absolute failure of leadership! In only God we can trust as a Nation.
