Counting the chicks before they are hatched

By Kofi Akordor
Sod-cutting ceremonies are great events that are very much anticipated by those directly affected. They are occasions which mark the beginning of the realisation of a much-cherished and long-awaited dream. It may be a chapel project by a religious body, a new classroom block for children who have suffered from the vagaries of weather as a result of learning under trees or unsafe sheds.
The bigger the project and the larger the beneficiary population, the higher the excitement. For instance, sod-cutting for the commencement of a road project for a community will be a great day. It signals bringing to a close years of trekking on bush paths before reaching the marketing centres, or if there was one, it means an improved road which will make the people to travel more comfortably and save vehicle owners the arduous task of changing vehicle parts every now and then.
Sod-cuttings became bigger events when politicians realised that they could fit into their propaganda machinery and sustain the support base of their parties or governments. So, if in the past sod-cuttings were mere rituals to signal the commencement of projects, in recent times especially after the return to constitutional multiparty democracy, the events have assumed a different posture, a strong mechanism to prove how caring, effective, sensitive and alive a government is to the plight of the people.
The ceremonies can be very simple or elaborate, covering every type of project including the simple ones such as village toilets, classrooms, markets, office buildings to big ones like medical complexes, housing estates, roads and now universities.
The stakes become higher and the anticipation bigger if the officiating officer happens to be the President of the Republic.
Ideally, and which is usually the case, a lot of ground work is done before the sod-cutting. There are occasions when actually work was ongoing and the sod-cutting becomes a mere public ceremony. Other times too, there will be visible signs of activity in the form of equipment on site.
Strangely, some of the projects never get started. Others get started with a lot of fanfare but are never completed. Going by the number of sods that have been cut for new projects since our return to constitutional rule in 1993, this country should have moved beyond a new middle income country to a young developed country brimming with beautiful roads, well-developed medical facilities and an educational infrastructure that will be the envy of other countries.
Unfortunately, next to the wild promises politicians make on campaign platforms, sod-cutting has become another tool of deceit to keep the electorate hoodwinked and kept in perpetual hope of a better tomorrow.
It is becoming clear that sod-cuttings as events are losing their vim and instead of giving us hope are making us dejected. The habit of going into frenzy and cutting sods or inaugurating uncompleted projects should end because what our political leaders are missing to realise is that they are not making things better for themselves or for the country.
Many people are prepared to accept the truth than to feel fooled. If you make a campaign promise and the reality on the ground makes it difficult it is better to admit so and suffer a few flacks from your political opponents than lose the confidence of the majority of the population.
In 2008, we saw what has become election gimmicks when former President J. A. Kufuor embarked on a frenzied sod-cutting spree, awarding contracts left and right and inaugurating half-completed projects. It did not work. You may say the die was cast. It was evidently clear that Ghanaians can endure many things but are not impressed by those gimmicks.
A recent instance is the ceremony to announce the start of a project especially major ones like the STX Housing Project and the University of Health and Allied Sciences for the Volta Region and the University of Energy and Renewable Natural Resources in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.
If it did not work yesterday, there is no reason why it will work today. That is why the Mills Administration should look into the past and know how to manage its affairs today for a better tomorrow.
These are projects that the government, I want to believe, is seriously and genuinely committed to and determined to pursue to their logical conclusion. Unfortunately, we were not ready when the impression was created that everything was ready.
Under the circumstances we have created a credibility gap which is becoming difficult to fill. We may think this is just a political game, but that should not be case. Such things undermine our development agenda, since they have the tendency to disrupt the pace of development projects.
If we want to make it just like those countries that are on a firm path of development, then we must be consistent in the way we handle our development goals. Right now, there are a lot of projects that have been abandoned in various stages of construction. Some of these projects date back to the days of Dr Kwame Nkrumah. An example of that era are the silos that have been abandoned after his overthrow while we still grapple with the problem of storage of farm produce.
Some of us are saddened by the neglect of the housing projects started in the Kufuor Administration while the one promised by this government are yet to get a single foundation laid. So what will be the fate of say, STX, if it should ever be started and not completed before the exit of President Mills? Will it become another wasteful national venture while millions of Ghanaians do not have a place they can call home?
As a nation, we should stop the joke and be serious. A lot of us are not impressed at all at the pace of our development. We have saturated the air with empty talk while problems are begging for solution. Our politics is maturing if even slowly and sooner than later, many Ghanaians will begin to make fair and objective analysis of political issues bordering on our national development and survival devoid of emotions.
The fact that we have switched from one political party to another in 2000 and 2008 is a testimony of the fact that party propagandists may have their say, but the electorate will have their way at the crucial hour. Let us, therefore, slow down the talk and do the walk. Let us not count the chickens before they are hatched. Shall we not then concentrate on what we have achieved rather than promises which may remain nothing but day dreams?

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com