By Kofi Akordor
IT has become normal — call it a ritual — for individuals, companies and nations to make fresh resolutions as we prepare to enter a new year. In many cases, we fail to reflect soberly on the past to admit our weaknesses or failures before embarking on another journey of day-dreaming.
At the sunset of 2010, we went through that ritual of making resolutions and pledging to succeed where we failed or to do better where there had been successes in 2010.
As we look back and observe 2011 recede into history, it is only fair that we do a thorough examination to see whether we have succeeded in our individual, corporate, institutional and national resolutions before welcoming ourselves into the new year, which is only two days old.
Individually, there are some who might have achieved their targets and even gone beyond them. There were those whose lives had seen a vast improvement or transformation — big jobs, new houses, latest models of vehicles and so on and so forth.
Among these people can be found those in direct politics or those very close to politicians as business agents, flamboyant and business people parading as Men of God who have played on the gullibility and sincere religiousness of the people to acquire wealth, corporate executives and a few hardworking men and women who, through their own efforts, achieved their breakthrough.
There were those, quite a sizeable number, who experienced minimal improvement or, at best, things remained as they were before. Not-so-good-but-not-so-bad is the consolation for such people. These are mostly public servants who managed, through fair or foul means, to remain afloat, just keeping body and soul together.
But the vast majority of the people, as has always been the case, remained on the fringes of society, a better Ghana agenda or not. These include the urban and rural poor who, no matter how hard they try, do not seem to come close to the magnetic field of success.
Our success as a nation can only by measured by the degree to which our government made good its promises or what many of us in the majority can agree upon to be, to a very large extent, a national achievement.
Our government, led by President John Evans Atta Mills, declared 2011 a year of action and promised the nation a projects galore. Ghana had just started the commercial production of crude oil in the Jubilee Fields and the President’s declaration gave many of us hope.
Among the projects promised to be executed in 2011 were the Eastern Corridor Road Project, two state universities for the Brong Ahafo and the Volta regions and the now infamous and, to some extent very stubborn, STX Housing Project.
The year has come to an end without a wheelbarrow being at any of these construction sites, even though the President had gone through the ritualistic process of cutting the sod for all of them.
In the case of the two universities and the Eastern Corridor roads, we know the government has a strong excuse in the delay in accessing the $3 billion Chinese credit facility which, as far as the Mills administration is concerned, is the main source of project finance.
The same cannot be said of the STX Housing Project which, even to the uninitiated, looked very murky right from the beginning. That the government should entrust such a major national housing project in the hands of a few businessmen and women whose selfish profit-making motives were never hidden was very unfortunate, to say the least.
It is now on record that three years into his administration, President Mills has not been able to put a single dwelling place on the ground. He could have even shared the honours if efforts were made to complete those started by the Kufuor administration in various parts of the country.
These are failures that constitute heavy blots on the government of President Mills and it will be to his personal image and to the advantage of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) if he quickly takes advantage of the approval given to the country by the International Monetary Fund to extend its external lending quota to redeem his promise relative to these projects as early as possible.
We are in the 21st century and while other countries are counting their economic successes and advances in science and technology in glowing terms, we here, over the past 10 years or so, have sadly been harping on the capitation grant, school feeding and lately removing schools under trees as major achievements. One would have wished that we too could point at impressive expressways linking our major towns and cities, beating our chests that our schools are among the best, if not the best, in the world. We could also be inviting the rest of the world to visit our tourist sites which are among the best in the world.
As a well-endowed country with many natural resources, we would have expected that, as a people with higher aspirations and limitless horizon, we would be able to harness those resources and turn them into valued-added commodities for the international market for higher returns.
It proves how narrow our vision is as a nation and how simplistic our appreciation of what is defined as development is as a people. No doubt, nobody bothers whether our traffic lights work or not, nor do we care whether Accra, our national capital, and other cities and towns are swallowed by filth or not.
We paid a heavy price in October 2011 when two days of heavy rains brought Accra to its knees. Immediately promises were made to solve the city’s drainage problem and enforce building regulations as captured in our statute books. That might have been voices of desperation that ebbed away with the end of that episode.
The past year saw indiscipline in our national life at its best, and nowhere was that more evidenced than on the roads. The MTTU of the Ghana Police Service has failed miserably to check the activities of commercial drivers who continue to pose as a danger to society by carelessly and recklessly driving anyhow, especially on the shoulders of the roads, including my favourite Spintex Road, without any sanction.
This is one country where obeying the laws and rules makes you look like a fool instead of a proud responsible citizen, thanks to the impotence of those who are entrusted with the enforcement of the rules.
What we lack in positive thinking and action have been adequately compensated for by way of lose and careless talk interspersed with profuse promise-making. Our country should have been far developed and not at this place where giving school uniforms or free food to a fraction of our schoolchildren will be an issue.
As we resolve to improve on our personal lives in the new year, we would wish to see certain major achievements this year. I wish that most of our projects, especially the Eastern Corridor roads, the two new universities and those major uncompleted road projects, moved from the sod-cutting level to real construction and completion stages.
The Kotoka International Airport (KIA) is the only airport that opens the country to the outside world. That means any foreign visitor entering the country other than using the land ports will come by the KIA. I, therefore, plead that the traffic intersection at the Airport Junction be tackled.
For a foreign visitor to be confronted with faulty traffic lights or heavy traffic jam just minutes after arriving in the country and a few metres away from the airport is not only an eyesore but also a national disgrace.
Our leaders have travelled to other world capitals and I do not want to believe that that was how they were welcomed into those countries.
I have always affirmed that our problem is not about lack of money but how we think and how we apply our resources. If we can pay judgement debts running into hundreds of millions of cedis, there is no excuse for neglecting basic things that will make this country healthier and more beautiful to live in.
We also want to see the promise made to improve the drainage system in the national materialise. Our democracy has survived, albeit under heavy doses of insults and acrimonious statements, some close to ethnic and tribal vituperations, and wild promises.
This is an election year and some of us do not expect anything better. Whether we like or not, it will get worse, since politics is no longer a divine call but a big business which has turned near paupers into millionaires overnight.
Whatever the case, we should remember that Cote d’Ivoire will not be the same for the next 50 years, just like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo and Nigeria. Our strength lies in the fact that notwithstanding all the insults, we still watch our eyes. Let us, therefore, watch our eyes while we enter the political battle for the Castle (or is it Flag Staff House or Jubilee House?) later in the year.
I wish my numerous readers who have kept this column alive a resourceful and prosperous New Year and very stress less and peaceful elections later in the year. May all our wishes come true.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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