We are the problem!
There is always a lot or paranoia in politics the whole world over, fuelled by quite rational people for whom skewed appreciation of any issue provides the opportunity to convert to their pet causes.
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It is clear to me that a lot of what we construe as problems in the national development efforts in this country are the direct result of the peculiar ways in which some of us, a vociferous lot, I must admit, have chosen to see those problems. Not only that. Add, to this is the determined effort to compel us to agree with them.
We are being presented with highly opinionated views of our current situation as though those opinions must necessarily be a reflection of the entire gamut of facts underlying its expression.
Of course, the educational and intellectual backgrounds of those offering us doomsday opinions on all aspects of our development efforts are a large part of their supposed believability.
Those backgrounds, fortunately for all of us, are really not more important than the common citizenship we all share. You reject this at the political peril of claiming you are more needed in this society than your neighbour who may not be as educationally endowed.
That does not mean those things being discussed are no less propaganda, that is, argument offered to sway minds to a diet of false convictions. Those who are busy today telling us at every turn that this country is a failed state are very much aware, like Winston Churchill said during World War II that the truth was so important that it must always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.
Today, I want to take a cursory look at two of the most talked-about issues of moments in our lives as Ghanaians, and assess them in the light of the general facts available to all of us.
Dumsor
First, let us take the phenomenon of dumsor, which is the Ghanaian parlance for unscheduled power outages. Dumsor is an uncomfortable and highly unprofitable phenomenon to both domestic and commercial consumers of electricity in our homes, offices and on the factory floor. But is it true that it is caused by government qua government? Buried in this omnibus accusation is the alleged incompetence of those at the forefront of the power generation and distribution business and their political heads.
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In spite of the above, no one disputes the twin facts that demand for power is rising at levels we cannot meet, and that new sources of energy take time to become operational in addition to being very expensive.
In plain words, a Jerry Rawlings in 1979, faced with this, could not have ordered adequate power with the fiat of a military decree. But this is a democracy, and we love the freedom it gives us to talk ad nauseam about our problems, and shift all responsibilities to government qua government.
In all this, we refuse to confront the direct, immediate cause of dumsor, namely the absolute political necessity of both technical and political staff to run all our energy-providing equipment to meet the rising demand by vociferous Ghanaians, and in the process, overstretching machines, and erasing our reserve margins, all in order to satisfy demand by vociferous Ghanaians who are becoming adept consumers of comforts of life at population levels unimaginable in the 1960s when we began the transition from oil-fired generators to hydro power.
The point is, as soon as we internalise the link between dumsor and the associated problems of increasing demand, the negative publicity would cease at once. It is my view that some of us thrive politically and socially on deliberately misunderstanding the role our persistent strivings play in the general appreciation of issues of moment. It is a form of capitalist alienation, or middle-class angst.
Falling cedi
The other obvious victim of our navel-gazing politics is the tale of the falling cedi. It is a wonder to me that the cedi, which is legal tender in only our own country, is mourned with such false sadness when it depreciates against foreign currencies, and we are able to look ourselves in the face and blame our governments. We are primarily to blame because we believe, and have believed for hundreds of years, that supporting foreign currencies by buying the goods which can only be acquired with foreign currency is the way to express social standing and economic progress in both our personal and national lives.
For decades since the formation of Cocoa Marketing Board in 1947 or so, we have been doing something which is rather curious in the economic sense, but which obviously suits some of us to continue doing, and which over the years, puts our cedi at a disadvantage relative to the dollar and the pound and the euro. Why don’t we change the bizarre practice of accessing loans in foreign currencies to buy cocoa grown in Ghana, change the money into cedis, and give to our farmers as payment? Nothing stops us, nothing, from requiring foreign buyers of our cocoa from buying them in cedis. Since we print our cedis, the effect of this vis-à-vis other currencies on our own cedi would be immediate and positive.
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I am very certain that the so-called experts are smirking and enjoying themselves at my ignorance of the principles of high finance; these are the direct descendants and inheritors of the advantages of the current system we have been operating now. They are the same people who defend high interest rates as if they are supposed to benefit the ordinary man on the street, when nothing can be further from the truth.
These so-called experts come in several clothes and disguises, preaching over the years the advantages of practices which have clearly not benefitted us, and whose large numbers make it proper to identify the problem they represent as Ghanaian problems. The same people who spend enormous time watching, discussing, appreciating and praising foreign soccer teams. A lot of people think this passion for foreign soccer is a sign of social refinement. The very same people who are adept at praising themselves for avoiding perfectly usable local products for foreign substitutes. They are us.