Blunt Thoughts || A forced haircut, a new pipe dream and a cycle of wastage: Ghana on the ropes!
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Welcome back on the AM show.
00:02 It's a holiday and I'm coming into your homes
00:04 with my bland thoughts.
00:05 Today I've titled them a forced haircut,
00:10 a new pipe dream, and a cycle of wastage.
00:15 Ghana on the ropes, of course, like a boxer
00:19 who is actually getting knocked out.
00:23 So what do I have to share with you this morning,
00:26 Ghana, for?
00:27 Since today is Founders Day,
00:28 let me start off with the Osagafo,
00:31 only fitting on a day like this, right?
00:33 Kwame Nkrumah, during the struggle for independence,
00:37 once said, and I quote him,
00:39 "And across the parapet,
00:40 I see the mother of Africa, unity, and independence,
00:44 her body smeared with the blood of her sons and daughters
00:47 in their struggle to see her free
00:49 from the shackles of imperialism.
00:51 And I could see and hear springing up cities of Ghana,
00:56 becoming the metropolis of science, learning,
00:58 scientific agriculture, and philosophy.
01:01 And I hear the mortals resound the echo and the rejoinder.
01:04 Seek ye first the political kingdom
01:07 and all the rest shall be added unto it."
01:10 Yet the political kingdom
01:13 of which Nkrumah so passionately spoke
01:15 has been lost to charlatans, vile and greedy politicians
01:19 whose only God is themselves
01:21 and whose only oblation or sacrifice are their people.
01:26 They rob the poor, squeezing them with burdensome taxes.
01:29 They feed fat off the most vulnerable.
01:33 They ride in lavish cars
01:34 and purchase the plushest of real estate.
01:37 They are nothing less than political vampires
01:40 draining the lifeblood of their own people
01:42 drop by bitter drop.
01:44 Nkrumah was selfless.
01:47 Those others who are being forced down our throats today
01:50 as co-founders were of the same selfish thought
01:53 we see in power today.
01:55 Nkrumah said, "Independence now."
01:57 What did they say?
01:58 Independence, yes, but in the shortest possible time.
02:01 Independence for them would only be good
02:03 if it came at a time when they would take over
02:06 and so to speak continue now as the new colonizers
02:10 to rob their people blind.
02:11 Why are we so wicked to our fellow man?
02:15 Go around even urban Accra
02:17 and look at the squalor in which people live.
02:20 Look at the sort of ramshackle housing we have.
02:22 Yet another government puts up a project in Saglemi
02:25 and we deliberately let it deteriorate
02:27 so we can sell it off cheap,
02:28 forgetting that the poor cocoa seller's taxes,
02:31 the indirect taxes that hit even that beggar
02:33 when he bought phone credits,
02:35 the taxes mopped up from the charcoal seller
02:37 and the hawker at the Kwame Nkrumah interchange area
02:40 who earns his bread day by day
02:42 are those that built the edifice.
02:45 Was it tainted with corruption?
02:47 Overpriced?
02:48 Was there anything shady about it?
02:50 Me, I know bore.
02:52 Deal with those who committed those atrocities
02:55 but ensure the edifice benefits the ordinary people at least
02:58 so it doesn't become a complete waste.
03:00 But no, because of shallow, myopic, self-centered thinking,
03:05 we have to let it all come down to what we see now,
03:08 a sad spectacle and even worse,
03:11 we then come to say we are going to put up
03:12 yet another affordable housing unit in Pukwasi.
03:15 Affordable to whom?
03:16 At what cost?
03:19 How many Ghanaians have family members
03:20 and renowned architects and funeral donors
03:22 like Sicilia Dappa does who can come up
03:24 with millions of CDs and dollars and euros?
03:26 How many?
03:27 These misleaders, eh?
03:29 (speaking in foreign language)
03:31 These misleaders have got it really cheap in Ghana
03:33 because when all this idiocy is done,
03:36 you will find even some ignorant,
03:38 miseducated and patriotic, equally selfish fools
03:42 coming to defend such errant nonsense.
03:44 Let me tell you something,
03:46 stupidity and nonsense under the NDC
03:49 was stupidity and nonsense then and it is saying now.
03:53 So too, incompetence under the NPP then and now
03:56 are just that, don't mince words.
03:59 Why we keep pretending black is white baffles me,
04:02 but if we keep acting like this,
04:03 misfortune will soon catch up with us.
04:06 In Kuma, from some documents I have seen
04:08 from the First Republic of Ghana,
04:10 put up 17,132 houses nationwide.
04:15 And that excludes then,
04:17 those in the 10 communities in Tema.
04:21 The 9,631 one and two bedroom rentable facilities
04:24 and the 7,501 three to five bedroom buildings
04:28 that Ghanaians could procure on higher purchase terms.
04:32 Just look at those numbers.
04:33 Some other day, when I can squeeze in a bit more time,
04:36 I shall give you a breakdown of the specific numbers
04:39 and the housing units in Asawase,
04:41 Suntresu North and South, Obwase, Takwa, Bibieni,
04:43 Akemodan, Kofuridi, Akanda, KGB, Jasek and Sopo,
04:46 Cape Coast, Fantea Boso, Osu Newside,
04:49 Bogatanga, Tamale, South Labadi,
04:51 Kolegono, Kaneshi one and two,
04:53 Chapel Hill, East Christianborg,
04:54 North Laboni, Latabio, Koshy,
04:56 among so many places,
04:58 I could exhaust a full hour mentioning to you.
05:01 And look at us today.
05:02 Did we go or did we come?
05:05 The Osagyo for Kwame Nkuma did not allocate
05:08 even one of these houses to himself.
05:11 Rather, he donated his Pediasin Lodge to Ghana,
05:13 to all of us, as an act of unerring love,
05:16 as a gift to his dear country
05:19 for official use as a presidential lodge.
05:20 Today, these misleaders retreat to that same venue
05:23 every now and then with no shame.
05:25 I listened to Mr. President recently,
05:29 when he spoke of Niger and what is happening there.
05:32 What did I hear?
05:33 Grave concern, discomfort, anxiety.
05:38 I even smelled a bit of fear.
05:39 Yes, fear.
05:41 But why will you not be afraid
05:42 when you make regime security your sole focus
05:45 and ignore human security needs,
05:46 pretending here and there?
05:48 Economic rights are thrown to the dogs,
05:51 yet you want to be able to sleep at night
05:52 and break what ate again.
05:54 That is nonsense.
05:55 Let's break the nonsense.
05:57 Let's break the misrule.
05:59 After you've done that,
06:00 the people can go on a voting autopilot exercise,
06:03 because we can trust you to steer our affairs.
06:06 But when even Gallamsey has done to us what it has,
06:10 and you come back and say, "We want to break the eight,"
06:12 then it must be that you take ordinary Ghanaians
06:14 for the biggest of fools,
06:16 at whom you can merely pull the ethnic and the party card
06:18 and win an election.
06:19 But we are getting wiser by the day.
06:22 And like the monkey that says, "Bibi and Tumimi,
06:25 "Bibi and Tumimi,"
06:26 your caps will be full sooner rather than later.
06:29 You claim your administration has created so many jobs,
06:32 yet where are the returns?
06:34 Why the unemployment bulge,
06:36 which is at its height?
06:37 I spoke to a friend of mine who has worked for many years
06:40 in Burkina Faso and other African countries,
06:42 and who recently got another major appointment
06:45 and moved to Lagos, Nigeria.
06:46 Thanks to his job outside Ghana, which pays him very well,
06:50 he's building a house somewhere here in Accra.
06:53 And when I say well-paying,
06:54 it's because what he does is one of those few jobs
06:57 where even here in Ghana,
06:58 if you contract people to do that for you at an event,
07:01 you'd have to pay in dollars or other hard currency,
07:03 or its equivalent.
07:04 So don't get me wrong.
07:05 He's not been to the sites
07:07 where the house is being put up,
07:08 partly because he's out of Ghana for most parts of the year.
07:11 And he only lets someone inspect the place
07:13 and tidy up from time to time.
07:15 Recently, when he came to Ghana
07:17 right before taking up his appointment in Lagos,
07:19 he went there and found to his absolute horror
07:22 that all the wiring that had been done
07:24 on the near-completed house had been stolen.
07:27 We're talking of cost of wiring and workmanship
07:29 hovering around 80,000 Ghana cities, gone.
07:33 The youth have no jobs,
07:35 so they'll risk their lives to do wicked things like that.
07:38 I'm not justifying what they did.
07:41 But what I am saying that when you push people to the wall,
07:43 they either crumble and die
07:45 or find a way of breaking through the wall,
07:47 employing tactics legal or illegal alike.
07:50 Your Sergeant for Kwame Nkrumah
07:53 did his absolute best for Ghana.
07:57 Can these misleaders today beat their chests
08:00 and say in all honesty that they are doing sane?
08:03 If we could see the loot that many,
08:05 not all of them, but many have stashed away,
08:08 we would be shell-shocked.
08:10 But like we say here,
08:11 every day for thief, man, one day for master.
08:15 The master's day will surely come at some point,
08:18 whether here or in the afterlife, but come it will.
08:22 My heart bleeds for Ghana and what has become of it.
08:26 My heart bleeds for the teeming youth
08:28 with all their creative energies,
08:30 yet with nothing to do by way of work
08:32 in this suffocating, nepotistic, and cronyistic economy.
08:36 Now we hear Dr. Amin Adam saying the IPPs
08:41 can either accept government haircut
08:43 or forfeit their money altogether.
08:44 Wow.
08:45 (speaking in foreign language)
08:49 Nkrumah never dies.
09:02 Ghana will not perish.
09:04 Ghana will live on.
09:06 From the ashes of misleadership will arise the phoenix
09:09 of a much better Ghana someday.
09:11 Before I proceed, let me just come to what Dr. Amin Adam
09:16 has been saying before I wrap this morning.
09:19 If you look at the second round of the DDEP,
09:22 and I'll be going very quickly on this,
09:24 it's going to cover energy sector,
09:26 independent power producers, cocoa bills,
09:28 and they have resisted this fiercely.
09:29 They say they are not going to partake in it,
09:31 and that is what we heard.
09:33 Now, Dr. Amin Adam says you either accept it
09:36 or maybe risk losing everything.
09:38 Okay, let's see how that turns out.
09:40 Cocoa bills, local US dollar-denominated bonds,
09:42 and the Bank of Ghana non-tradable debt.
09:44 Let's go to the next slide.
09:46 Now, taking a haircut, government says it is unable
09:50 to pay energy sector debt.
09:52 Restructuring is necessary.
09:53 The IPPs are not unique and must undergo debt restructuring.
09:57 I see, you've forgotten the contract you had with them.
10:01 Next slide.
10:02 But Elikpilim Kwabla Apetogbo,
10:05 Chief Executive of the Chamber
10:06 of Independent Power Producers, this is what he says.
10:09 IPP has made its position emphatically
10:11 with regard to the debt restructuring
10:13 that we are not open to that.
10:14 We are open to a discussion that focuses
10:16 on the payment plan of our areas.
10:19 Next slide.
10:19 And then we come to other business.
10:23 Ken Ufuriata, our Finance Minister.
10:26 We have turned the corner.
10:27 Which of them?
10:31 Iwuni E, which corner have we turned?
10:33 Next slide.
10:36 Then you look at our budget projections
10:39 versus mid-year revisions, and it makes for a sad story.
10:42 Imagine this being the script of your child in school.
10:47 Wasi.
10:48 Overall real GDP, 2.8%.
10:53 Revised budget, 1.5%.
10:55 Inflation target, 18.9%, 31.3%.
10:58 Gross international reserves,
10:59 not less than 3.3 months cover.
11:01 That's where we are, 0.8 months cover.
11:04 Primary balance, 0.7% of the surplus.
11:06 We are at 0.5% deficit.
11:08 And expenditure allocation, 227.7 billion, 206 billion.
11:13 Next slide.
11:13 Now, if you look at the divisions in terms of the score,
11:19 end December inflation rate deviated.
11:22 So clear score there, F9.
11:25 F, fail.
11:27 Gross international reserves, 67.5%.
11:31 Favorable, B3.
11:33 Overall real GDP growth, 53.44, C6.
11:36 It's okay still.
11:37 Total expenditure commitment basis.
11:40 (speaking in foreign language)
11:42 F9.
11:44 Non-oil real GDP growth.
11:46 There it is.
11:47 And then you come to crucial areas
11:49 like primary balance on commitment basis.
11:51 We deviated.
11:52 Overall budget deficit.
11:54 That one is like a song we keep singing.
11:56 Overall budget deficit cash basis also deviated.
11:59 Three F9s.
12:00 If you have a student with the exception
12:03 of total revenue and grants here, that's A1.
12:05 It will not get you into any institution in Ghana
12:07 with one, two, three, four F9s.
12:10 Your aggregate will be 32.
12:13 Four F9s.
12:14 And this is what we are turning the corner with.
12:19 Next slide.
12:19 In terms of our national affordable housing program,
12:23 I've spoken to you about it and what Nkrumah did
12:25 and the nonsense we are displaying now.
12:27 Regime after regime.
12:28 I'm not just talking about the MPP now.
12:30 The thing we've been doing with this affordable housing,
12:32 it's so shocking.
12:33 And now you leave Sakhlemi and you say
12:35 you are going to Pokwase.
12:36 God be with you.
12:37 It entails the construction of 14,000 house units,
12:41 8,000 units in the greater Accra region
12:43 and 6,000 in the Ashanti region.
12:44 The project infrastructure will cost government $47 million
12:48 while the private entities take the rest of the cost.
12:51 (audio cuts out)
12:54 Ghana 4.
12:58 And then we hear from Francis Asensu-Bahache,
13:01 Minister for Works and Housing.
13:02 It will cost $140 million to make the Sakhlemi
13:05 housing projects habitable.
13:07 When you leave it for the time you did
13:09 and it becomes what it has become,
13:11 why would it not cost you that much money?
13:13 And the private developer can take care of it, right?
13:18 The project lacked proper feasibility studies.
13:21 I see.
13:23 Sakhlemi should be completed by private entities
13:25 who have, fine.
13:26 It is my prayer that with the Pokwase one,
13:29 all these things are in there,
13:31 because if they are not, you will have a very hard time.
13:35 As I wrap, I want to give you hope.
13:39 You see, like Rocky Dawuni shares in his song,
13:43 I've been listening to it throughout this morning.
13:45 Even my production team has been listening to it.
13:48 I may not sound like Rocky, but I picked a few words
13:51 from the start, the middle, just in there.
13:54 When he says, ♪ Time now for jubilation ♪
13:58 ♪ Oh God, I wish I had an answer ♪
14:02 ♪ 'Cause in sweet love ♪
14:06 ♪ Our spirits will grow ♪
14:08 ♪ So brothers be jamming ♪
14:10 ♪ Yes, we be jamming ♪
14:13 ♪ We'll be jamming till they're hiding ♪
14:15 ♪ Or press a man running ♪
14:17 ♪ While we're jumping ♪
14:20 ♪ We'll be jamming today ♪
14:22 ♪ So say it's love from Rasta in Ghana ♪
14:26 ♪ We're stopping all the suffering in Ghana ♪
14:29 ♪ I say it's love from Africa in Ghana ♪
14:34 ♪ Daja seals and signs and delivers ♪
14:38 Take heart, my people.
14:40 I know you are knocking on the doors
14:41 of despondency and hopelessness,
14:44 but I want to leave you with this quote
14:45 by Pithacus Law, who says,
14:47 "When you have lost hope, you have lost everything.
14:51 And when you think all is lost,
14:53 when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope."
14:58 Let us pray that God raises our flag,
15:00 the red, the gold, and the green,
15:03 and that we become indeed that black,
15:05 yet brightly shining star of Africa and the whole world.
15:08 I wish you all Ghana for a happy Founders' Day
15:12 with an apostrophe S.
15:14 My name is Benjamin Akaku,
15:16 and these are my blunt thoughts shared with you,
15:18 raw, hot, and edited, and diluted.
15:21 God richly bless our homeland, Ghana,
15:24 and make her great and strong.
15:26 (dramatic music)
15:29 (dramatic music)
15:32 (dramatic music)
15:35 (dramatic music)
15:37 (dramatic music)
15:40 (dramatic music)
15:43 (dramatic music)
15:46 (dramatic music)
15:48 ♪♪