Mr President, lead the era of attitudinal change

I couldn't bring myself to write anything celebratory on Independence Day because I honestly did not find much to be happy about.The President's message, though, was right on target.

Our economy is at a breaking point partly because it is so import-dependent. The global economic space is fiercely competitive and our laissez - faire attitude simply will not cut it. Mr Mahama is right again in his diagnosis that the biggest challenge to bringing about transformative change in Ghana is attitudinal.

Without going into a long historical journey on how attitudes changed for the worse in Ghana, we can agree on some of the identifiable symptoms of the disease of protracted underdevelopment, which will be our undoing as a nation.

President Mahama has the disadvantage of having been part of an administration which oversaw the largest budget deficit in recent times, so if he, indeed, is taking a different path, he must provide vigorous treatment for the patients.

He must break the NDC orthodoxy, not in content but in application of his interventions across the board. He must depart completely from “Ghanaianisms” such as asking folks "to bear with us", appealing to the Almighty and other common exhortations. He must begin to shape his party and the public sector to embrace data and measurable outcomes in place of indiscipline, noise and propaganda.

All Ghanaian institutions are corrupt so it is laughable to behold Parliament's "OMG - gee whiz" response to Mr Bagbin's recent claims that legislators are on the take. Influence peddling should be on our coat of arms.

To produce the made-in-Ghana results like Nkrumah did, the Mahama administration must rely on meritorious Ghanaians in all fields and less on the appointing party apparatchiks with dubious backgrounds to handle sensitive areas of government critical to our development.

In Nkrumah's days, the global effort to recruit the best Ghanaians and sometimes expatriate technocrats in all fields as part of a broad vision for development was vigorous.

Let's take the weather forecast for the recent March 6 commemoration, for example. Ghana Meteorological Service did provide a generic forecast, vague as it was. They should have been more specific on the risk of precipitation in the capital at the time of the event.

Alternative plans could have been made. These could have included starting the event at a time with less risk of rain, an alternative indoor venue, change in the programming to exclude children marching in the rain, the President speaking in a dry region of the country etc.

Not to belabour this, but the recently appointed National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) deputy director is an example of a party apparatchik in a sensitive position. First, she blames dwarfs and juju for the fall of the cedi, then she claims falsely that she did not get a weather forecast ahead of March 6.

It was NADMO's duty to anticipate problems and co-ordinate with Ghana Meteorological Services to plan for an undisturbed independence event. So, was anyone held accountable for this snafu? No accountability.

Political and administrative heads of agencies, on whose watch state funds and assets are lost should be suspended, fired or prosecuted based on rapid and detailed investigations.

They have a duty to ensure that the public purse is protected. Our national attitude to these failures should be unequivocally punitive. Competence and verifiable results should be the guiding principles of government. The attitude of the Office of the President in these matters should lead the way to a New Ghanaian Attitude (NGA).

We are constantly wooing investors. Yes, it's good to have a stable democracy but what investors need most is a workforce that is well trained, disciplined and productive. We no longer have this in Ghana. We used to, 30 years ago.

An SHS graduate cannot write a job application without grammatical errors. Many cannot speak English in a sustained manner, without breaking into pidgin or making one run for cover.

As a result, the calibre of university graduates is very poor compared to those of a generation ago. Free SHS is a laudable goal but the quality of the educational product at all levels must first be addressed.

We are not using evidence-based educational methods of project-based interactive learning in our schools, hence we have poor managers throughout our system at all levels. 

Our youth are unprepared for the global workplace. Youth unemployment is ready to explode and long range sustainable solutions rather than short-term tactical approaches are necessary. The Arab Spring had nothing to do with Arabs. It was rooted in many years of ill-prepared youth with no career prospects in those countries. 

The average public servant arrives at 11 a.m. and is done by 2 p.m. What do we do about this?

 Investors are guided by strategic relevance and financial returns for the risks they take. Our lax management attitudes and poor work ethics do little to encourage sustained investments that benefit us as a nation. They add to the cost of doing business. The President must be creative in leading the charge on these issues in a bold and visible manner if he is to leave a distinct legacy.

We are a well-endowed, resource-rich beggar nation. We should be ashamed that after almost 60 years as a nation state, our officials oft stated strategy for development is to reach out to donors (elegantly referred to as donor- partners), while we lose billions of dollars yearly through corruption and incompetence.

We must invest in systematically rooting out corruption at all levels, starting with public institutions and in conjunction with that, devise a broader based taxation system which is more closely tied to true commercial activity in the country. 

Some of us remember when made-in-Great Britain items were replaced over a few years ago with made-in-Ghana goods in the early 60s. We imported less and made goods of high quality both for the local and global market.

The trains and city buses ran on time and the manufacturing sector was vibrant. The society was orderly and Ghanaians were disciplined enough to line up everywhere and take their turn in public and commercial houses for services.

We live in a state of organised chaos. We have devolved into an unproductive, unaccountable, 19th century society with poor sanitation where diarrhoeal conditions are still the leading cause of death. We are ranked second globally in diarrhoeal-related deaths. What a distinction after 57 years of statehood!

If the President is to succeed, he must follow his innermost instincts. He must become less of a party man and govern fiercely, without fear or favour. He will risk becoming a one-term president if he dithers because Ghana is ready for a tough executive leader. He must seize the day and not look back. It is a daunting task but Mr Mahama has accepted the mission and must deliver by leading the era of attitudinal change from the top by the actions of his government. 

The writer is a Professor of Psychiatric and Behavioural Medicine at the University of Alabama  and the author of " Java Hill: An African Journey" - A historiography of Ghana.

tulzen@yahoo.com