Bar state officials from seeking healthcare, education abroad — Osofo Quarm

The administrator of the national headquarters of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and a leading member of the party, Osofo Kwasi Dankama Quarm, has called on the government to pass a law to bar state officials from seeking healthcare for themselves and their families abroad.

The same law, he said, should bar them from sending their children to foreign schools.

According to him, it was unfair and unjust for state officials to abandon the health and education facilities available in the country only to travel abroad, most often, at the expense of the state to seek healthcare or educate themselves or their children.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic as part of activities to commemorate the 109th birthday of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Osofo Quarm said when Dr Nkrumah was ruling Ghana, he laid the foundation for the country’s educational and health infrastructure and made sure that children of ministers of state and public officials attended local educational and health institutions.

No reflection of fairness, equity and justice

He, therefore, questioned why today, government officials were allowed to seek medical care and send their children to foreign schools.

“That does not reflect equity, fairness and justice. They leave our schools and hospitals in bad conditions resulting in poor academic output and our hospitals lacking basic amenities that would have improved the medical status of the ordinary Ghanaian and yet when they have medical challenges, they travel abroad and send their children to school abroad,” he posited.

Osofo Quarm, who is also the Leader of the Afrikania Mission, said “this country has a very long way to go if we do not follow the principles and teachings of our first President.”

“This is not the Ghana that we fought and struggled to establish. Our leaders should sit up and sit up properly because the blueprint is already laid down and there is no way that our leaders could continue to fumble if they follow the blueprint laid down by Dr Nkrumah,” he said.

For him, the exploitation of Africa and Ghana, specifically was over, saying “we cannot always go back to where others are coming from. We can never catch up with them.”

Taking the bull by the horn

He said it was high time the country took its destiny into its hands and worked at fulfilling that destiny, stressing that in doing so “we must be courageous and bold to act and never place our scarce resources in the hands of foreigners.”

“In fact, it is not salaries and royalties that build a country but the profit. So let’s go for the profit and to make profit, we must be prepared to take the risk. We must not be afraid to take risk,” he urged.

He was of the view that the salaries that public servants and Ghanaians in general earned was nothing to write home about “but our politicians take advantage of their positions and seek education and healthcare outside the country while the poor Ghanaian had to deal with the healthcare system here with all its inadequacies.

He said: “They have the means to do what they have to do while they deprive the majority of Ghanaians of access to quality healthcare and educational facilities.”

It was Osofo Quarm’s conviction that if all the nation’s resources were channeled into ensuring standard health and education facilities, there would not be the need for anyone to travel abroad to seek medical care or further their education.

Writer’s email: victor.kwawukume@graphic.com.gh