AGEING, BUT NOT GROWING (MARCH 24, 2009)

On March 6, 2009, we went through, as we have been doing all the years, the motion of celebrating our freedom from colonialism. The children, as usual, marched in the scorching tropical sun for hours, just as their grandparents and parents before them did, to salute the National Flag.
In the national capital, our President, just as has been customary of all others who have occupied the throne, took the salute as the schoolchildren marched past. The celebration would not end without flowery speeches being made in which the tired children were promised that they would come to inherit a better Ghana than their grandparents and parents came to meet it.
After a good evening meal and drowning of a few gallons of wine, spirit and beer, the day had actually come to an end and the principal characters go on retirement to wait for another March Six.
At 52, even as a nation, Ghana has come of age. But has it been growing over the years? It is easy to answer this question by looking at those in our age group including those who are slightly younger or older than us. Immediately, names will begin to drop — China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan and many others, of course not including our contemporaries on the continent who are in that leaking boat like us.
Some time ago, we (African, Latin American and most of the Asian countries) were being described as underdeveloped countries. We complained bitterly that that description did not suit us, since we believed that no matter the pace, we are also making some progress. To accommodate our sentiments, the rest of the world did us a favour by describing us developing countries.
Most of the Asian and Latin American countries, through pragmatic policies and visionary leadership over the years, have eased themselves out of that group of developing countries and for lack of better description are now called Emerging New Economies (ENE). Some are virtually at the doorsteps of the so-called developed countries but for a few development indices and the hypocrisy of the so-called league of developed countries to admit the truth that their days of glory are gone past.
Even though to soothe our psychological pain we may pretend to share things in common, there is no way we can belong to the group of countries such as Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, India, Singapore, Malaysia and the rest of the Asian Tigers. China’s methodical and determined advancement in science, technology and commerce was for years, blinded by Western propaganda which never gave any credit to that nation until the phenomenal explosion of China’s dominance on the international stage.
In comparative terms, it is easy to see a clear distinction between Ghana and its contemporaries in Asia and Latin America and that distinction does not make it look as if the country had been developing. What about when we take a look at our own progress over the years. I think we can only see ourselves developing if we are able to make improvement over what existed in the past. In that case even if the improvement is slow it still will amount to development, albeit not an encouraging one.
Unfortunately, that is not even the case. The general infrastructure existing today cannot seriously be said to be better than what existed in the past. If you take the educational infrastructure of today, it cannot compare favourably with what was in existence in the 60s and 70s when those who are managing the affairs of this country today were at school age. In a real developing situation, the children of today should have been enjoying better educational facilities than what their parents came to meet. Is that the case in the country?
The development of health facilities and other social amenities like water and sanitation facilities cannot match the pace of population growth.
Agriculturally, the country cannot in any way claim that it is doing better than it did 20 to 30 or more years ago. Food production is conspicuously lower than consumption and for a small country like Ghana with its relatively abundant resources, it is a sad commentary that it has to import food items from countries like Vietnam, Thailand, China, Burkina Faso, Mali, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa.
It is a sad spectacle to see the youth struggling in the scorching sun to sell grapes and apples from South Africa, Portugal, France and Spain, when locally produced oranges, mangoes, pear, banana, pineapple and other fruits rot away in the bush. From the streets, imported wine, fruit juices and vegetables dominate the shelves in our supermarkets. That itself tells a story of the state of the country’s agro-processing industry. The dominance of imported frozen meat of all sorts from different countries, a lot with questionable quality, is an indictment on our poultry and livestock industry.
Strangely, at 52, we still take pride in counting ourselves among the biggest producers of raw cocoa beans, unprocessed wood and unrefined gold. The industrial sector has virtually been stripped bare and the only thing we have improved upon over the years is the selling of foreign goods.
Every new government brings new hope. The President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, rekindled the dream of turning the Afram and Accra plains into the food basket of the nation when he harped upon the subject in his State of the Nation Address to Parliament three weeks ago. It is the hope of Ghanaians that this time it will not be another of those political talks that receive wild acclamation upon delivery and later consigned to the dustbins of history.
This is a country that has so much in abundance for food sufficiency that its worry should have been where to send the surplus. Unfortunately, we see the Volta flowing wastefully into the sea while we put severe strain on our little foreign reserves to import food from countries that come nowhere near us in terms of natural resources.
Ours had never been a question of resources but lack of ideas and commitment. We have turned the whole country into a giant trading post and everybody, including ministers of state who should spearhead the development drive, is in a frenzy to become net importers of all manner of commodities to the neglect of local industry.
The Accra-Tema Motorway, for instance, paints a sordid picture of how we have deteriorated over the years. A road which was constructed in the 60s to serve as a conduit between the national capital and the emerging industrial and port city of Tema and to announce our arrival as a newly independent nation has now become a death trap.
It is more or less a town road snaking through various residential and industrial settlements without the necessary corresponding upgrading and improvement. Driving on the motorway in the night can be a terrible experience. The lights that were to illuminate the road, by some grand design, do not function, and if they do, on only certain stretches of the road.
An attempt to bring some modernity at Tetteh-Quarshie has become a national disaster because we have chosen money over convenience and advancement. Matters are not better at the Tema end of the motorway because the small circle designed for fewer number of vehicles in the 60s cannot cope with the large volume of vehicles that flow from Accra and Tema towards the Aflao-Togo route, the Ho-Akosombo and beyond and the numerous settlements that have sprung up between Tema and Afienya.
Where we need to apply a little bit of imagination and diligently use our national resources to serve the nation, we find excuse in ‘the no money’ syndrome. But when it comes to frivolities we are second to none. That is why we are prepared to engage in endless and useless debate on how many vehicles should be given to a retiring President who already has more than enough to make a comfortable living for the rest of his life.
Gradually and maybe unconsciously, we are becoming a nation of cynics who use the greater part of our time, not thinking about moving this country forward but plotting how to dupe the nation or ditch one another. We dwell more on seeking revenge than focusing on the future and strategising for national development.
Our nation Ghana has come of age, but seriously speaking is suffering from stunted growth. Shall we say another opportunity has fallen on our laps with the arrival of a new government when we should endeavour to go beyond celebrating independence with march pasts in the scorching sun and point at landmarks as we progress as a nation?

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