Promises and reality

This week, we should probably commend the President for his honesty. For finally admitting something we’ve always known since the campaign period. That his campaign promises were too outlandish and that there was no way he could simply execute all of them.

He pinned his inability to accomplish what he had set for himself to the restrictive nature of his four-year tenure. The reality may have dawned on him earlier but we get to know 11 months later.

But may be we should not be too hard on him. Probably we should simply assume that politicians do not understand the weight and gravity of the statements they make whiles in opposition. And in a way we are all guilty of taking simplistic views of things when we are outsiders.

Take writers for instance. It is easy to write all those interesting and logically coherent arguments about how things should be and how they should not be. It is easy to pontificate from a distance.  

Take an opposition party as another example. Being in opposition is like watching a musical concert on television. It is so easy to tell who is off key even if you do not have musical talent yourself.

There are even times that you are tempted to think that you can perform better than some other presenter. The same can be said for football. “the player should have simply turned the ball to his left and passed”, some would say.

But to be in government and in the thick of things is no joke. That is a very difficult thing. It is a very different reality. The difference may be as stark as that between day and night.
In opposition, your task is to use logic. In government, you would realise that there is nothing that works according to plan.

Your decision to take a step or not to take a step may be influenced by a myriad of factors – some of which cannot be contemplated. You have your core constituents to take care of. So do you also have to ensure the well-being of the overall citizenry.

The President recently commended the Jospong Group of Companies for its inestimable contribution to the Ghanaian society. In the President’s own words “The contribution you are making to our social life is inestimable. We have to encourage you.”  

And yet the President and his party, whiles in opposition, were up in arms against Jospong for various allegations of corruption. That is the difference between being in opposition and being in government.

So back to the promises, the government had to say something spectacular in order to win. It had to beat the former administration in the war of words.

After all, that was what it was. A war of words. Pure and simple. They knew no one was going to hold them accountable for the views that they expressed on the campaign trail. No court was going to construe the campaign promises as a binding agreement.

The current Vice President was for instance quoted as saying that his experience as a former governor of the Bank of Ghana has taught him that there were enough resources in the vaults of the Bank of Ghana; and as a result, there was no need to borrow from external sources.

Don’t forget as well the one constituency, US$ 1 million promise. Then the one district, one factory promise. Then the One village, one dam promise.

The government does not need anyone to tell it that it will take a miracle to achieve all those campaign promises. And no matter how desirous the government may be, there are resource constraints.

Let’s even take the government’s free senior high school (SHS) programme which is underway. The initiative currently covers only first years of the various SHSs.  

In the next year, it will cover both the current beneficiaries and the new entrants until we get to the point where everyone is covered.

But even with the current stage of things there are implementation challenges, which means that more money is required to fine tune the initiative in order to make it effective and better.
But this government will not be the first to exaggerate its abilities. Every government is guilty of that.


And as alluded to earlier, our politicians have a consistency and credibility problem. They could not have been on the streets claiming that they have the men and women to turn the fortunes of the nation without taking into consideration the fact that their mandate is for four years at a time.

So for one to say that they would not be able to achieve your aims because time for implementation is not enough is making an excuse.

But what can one do but to wish the government well in its bid to do what it believes it can do within the limited time that it has.

We really should wish the government well in bringing its promises into reality.

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