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Opinions of Wednesday, 7 June 2023

Columnist: Majeed Abukari

Some of IMF bailout conditions will further aggravate the living conditions of the poor, lower and middle income earners

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"If you see a fowl dancing in Damba festival, it is a cooking pot which is calling it" a Dagbani proverb.

Either you speak out or I do, silence is not golden when many people go to bed with empty stomachs due to human errors.

Destructive partisanship, Economic disparity, environmental abuse, injection of fear through manipulation by the elites, sensationalism and corruption are the reasons which have explained in unambiguous forms why Ghana is where it is today. Without a doubt, it is hard to be an upstanding politician in this government without being sidelined. When you are one of them you must simply distance yourself from the truth.

The reason why the public is hungry for the kind of change which will ensure equity and fairness. The kind of transformational change which will restore hope and confidence in their lives and the economy.

The reality of today is no doubt has left an intensely challenging time to be a businessman in this country. Which, indeed, has given a room of heightened expectations from the citizenry yet insurmountable.

Truth is, to be a leader of tomorrow in this country, you have the toughest challenges to face. How to pay up the colossal amounts of liabilities with less assets is troubling. Almost all Ghana’s foreign reserves have been left with huge liabilities, the exchange rate is an eye sore - faith in the cedi is pensive, inflation is abysmal, debt to GDP is in crescendo, and lending rate is unappetising.

Moreover, IMF conditionality is but perilous to lower- and middle-income earners. How more the poor? That is exactly how gloomy the state of our economy has become. Painfully, as part of the conditions to even highlight, electricity tariffs are supposed to increase quarterly while fuel subsidies are sadly removed by the end of June.

So, when is hope coming, when Ghanaians are going to face the wrath of IMF conditions due to recklessness and incompetence by the government in managing the economy well?

Also, look at the destructive partisanship natures in our institutions and markets. It is such appalling and devastating that, the only way a citizen is better off is when they have “somebody” in institutions and government. Otherwise, count yourself out of an opportunity to be employed in any institution to serve this country. That is the kind of destruction of an extreme partisanship proportion that has been imbibed in the job market, perilously insecure.

Economic disparity is another cancer eating deeply into the public fabric. Policies are only designed to favour the haves at the detriment of the haves not. And so, there’s always a disparity between rich and poor people.
Unfortunately, to what end must the downtrodden continue to suffer in the hands of taxes which are always imposed by the central government and painfully intended to aggravate the lives of common Ghanaians, when in actual fact they are the ones who queue up under scorching sun in every election to vote for their lives to be changed?

Elsewhere, governments are sensitive to price regulations – for what reason must prices of goods and services increase if nothing calls for such an increment? Same products same brands same market, same location but different stores yet different prices in this country.

Why? However, go to Togo or Ivory Coast – the same prices across all markets with even different locations. Why can't the central government take control of the market if the market system (free market economy) doesn’t help the poor and the economy but the rich?

Is it that our regulatory institutions are not up to task or it is a conspiracy for mutually inclusive benefit between the authorities and business leaders?

Why then must the poor vote if they cannot be protected by a democratically elected government through price regulations, inflation, lending rate, exchange rate, etc? Even worse when poor people are being short-changed at least opportunity by businessmen while authorities sit aloof and look on. Is that not any problem with the government should be interested in and have to be protecting them?

Today, you visit mining communities and what you see is destruction of water bodies, destruction of the forest and destruction of lives of people through illnesses. The water they drink and the food they eat are contaminated by chemicals. Environmental abuse is unbridled at the peril of people living in these communities due to illegal mining activities.

Unfortunately, fear has further aggravated and many who should have been speaking cannot speak out because they feel threatened. Their lives matter most to their families if there’s no security to guarantee their safety for speaking truth to power. To what end will this continue?

Even as these unwanted and undeserving things are going on, those of the professionals who are supposed to write and speak to them are rather enriching themselves through sensationalism and corruption. Imagine some of these people taking up positions in government and many are bribed into using their media platforms to bury what is supposed to be disseminated for public consumption to correct the ills in our societies.