There was fighting on the floor of Ghana’s parliament a few days ago. The proposed E-Levy, through which the government is seeking to raise more revenue, has hit a stalemate. It may be on the way to dying, unless it is somehow revived and brought tottering back to its feet in January 2022.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), which has 137 members of Parliament, has dug its feet in. Aided by the partisan Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin, who conveniently disappeared from his seat at the last minute, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) could not raise the necessary numbers.
I have my problems with the E-Levy. I do not think that it is good for this country. However, good or bad, the problem the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has with the passage of the E-Levy in parliament, is purely a problem of numbers. If the NPP had the numbers, the forever whinging and sanctimonious Alban Bagbin would not be Speaker of Parliament. If the NPP had the numbers, it would have been able to push through the E-Levy.
Sometimes, one is hard-pressed to conduct objective analysis in our country. If the diabolical Alban Bagbin were not to be the Speaker, it would have been Prof. Mike Ocquaye. Going purely by numbers, the venerable old man would have been Speaker, even though he is so demonstrably old, tired, and weak that sometimes it is hard for him to climb into his vehicle. He was an obviously bad choice for the position of Speaker, but somebody chose him and hoped to have him elected as Speaker. And the person would have had his wish if NPP had had the numbers. Such can be the negative aspects of numbers. Political parties need numbers, but they also need thinking, independent numbers. That may be one of the principal problems of our parliament. And of our politics. People tend to believe that all actors on one side, should believe and behave in the same way, without thinking. Numbers can be good. They can also be very bad.
However, were numbers to be used for the good all the time, then the question of numbers should be of interest to the NPP and its followers. The issue of numbers is especially crucial to that party; how did the NPP manage to lose so many parliamentary seats that its representation in parliament fell from a high of 169 to a low of 137 plus one independent MP?
The answer can be found with the wiseacres at NPP’s National and Regional Offices. The wiseacres thought that they can sit on their mighty perches and decide what happens in constituencies. All politics is local. Political parties exist on the ground, otherwise, they do not exist at all.
That lesson was taught in election 2020. It is still being taught in blows in parliament. One only hopes that it would not be taught again in 2024.
Anyway, do you like the Bible? I like the Bible. I like reading the Bible because of the many beautiful stories it relates. One of such stories is the story of the ‘Parable of the Talents’. That parable is said to have been related by Jesus of Nazareth. It tells the story of a rich man who had to travel and decided to share his wealth (talents) among three servants. To one he gave fifty talents. To another, he gave twenty talents. And to a third, he gave one talent. He told the servants that he would be away for a number of years and that they should do with the talents as they please. They had absolute free choice on what to do with their talents.
Now, what is a ‘talent’ as related by Jesus Christ in his times? According to Wikipedia, a talent (Ancient Greek τάλαντον, talanton ‘scale’ and ‘balance’) was a unit of weight of approximately 80 pounds (36 kg), and when used as a unit of money, was valued for that weight of silver. As a unit of currency, a talent was worth about 6,000 denarii. A denarius was the usual payment for a day’s labour. At one denarius per day, a single talent was therefore worth 20 years of labour (assuming a 6-day work week, because nobody would work on the weekly Sabbath in those days.
Therefore, one can calculate the value of fifty talents entrusted into the care of one person. Even the one talent that was given to the third servant, was a considerable amount of money.
The parable goes that when the rich man returned after a few years, he called on his three servants to account for their stewardship. The first servant, who had received fifty talents, told his master that he had doubled the wealth in his absence. He was thus rewarded by the Master and blessed. The second servant stated that he had likewise done the same, and was similarly blessed. The third servant, however, said that to preserve the talent he had been given, he had gone to bury it, and returned this back to his Master. For his reward, he was punished.
Luke 12:48 states that to whom much is given, much will be required. We have paraphrased it another way to state that to whom much is given, much is expected.
What is the cost of a government, or in our specific case, what is the cost of our government? We may look at the cost of maintaining a government in many ways. For instance, recently, the Finance Minister of Ghana, Mr. Ken Ofori Atta, stated that Ghana spends over 60% of its annual budget paying salaries and emoluments.
We can also look for the cost of government by finding out how much it costs the nation of Ghana to put in place a government every four years.
There is data to suggest that the nation of Ghana, through the Electoral Commission, spent as much as GHc720 million (seven hundred and twenty million Ghana cedis) on giving the right to vote to eighteen million hapless and discomfited Ghanaians. I have no doubt in my mind at all, that much of this money would end up in the pockets of people for no work done and for no value.
I digress. To get back on topic, that means that to produce a government out of the lot of political parties that vied for the right, Ghana spent GHc720 million. So, producing a government does not come cheap. It cost each individual Ghanaian about GHc24.00 to produce the government. It is a very substantial investment. I can say, this morning, that there are hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians, and even entire families in Ghana who would not wake up this morning with twenty cedis to count on. And as Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta has already confirmed, much of our national budget is spent on maintaining the same government we have spent so much money to elect.
So that is really a lot of money, a lot of resources that we pump into government. And to repeat, as Luke 12:48 states, to whom much is given, much will be required, or to whom much is given, much is expected. We give much to our governments, and we expect much from them. Unfortunately, it seems that what we have constantly been rewarded with, over the years, is mediocrity. Shocking, eye-popping mediocrity.
Recently, the Minister of Trade, one of my personal favourite people, went to parliament to answer a question. It was a question posed by Mr. Murtala Muhammed Ibrahim, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale Central, on how much the state of Ghana spent on the importation of rice and other foodstuffs into the country over the past four years.
In a sense, that question lacked specificity. Was it that the MP wanted to know how much the government had spent importing rice and other foodstuffs, or how much the people of Ghana had spent importing rice and other foodstuffs?
Whatever the import of the question, Mr. Kyerematen’s answer was shocking. He said that cumulatively, from 2017 to 2020, Ghana had imported GH₵12.748 billion worth of rice, fish and chicken.
Rice, chicken and fish? I am sad for this country. This is a nation that has vast tracts of very arable agricultural lands and rivers. We also have millions and millions of able-bodied men and women. Why on earth should we be importing rice, chicken and fish to begin with?
Again, rice, chicken and fish are among the lower tier of products that Ghanaians can produce for themselves. It does not take any great technology to produce these things. Even if it required any technological acumen, that type of expertise should not be beyond Ghanaians. These days, Ghanaians even manufacture vehicles and mobile phones and computers, so producing fish, rice and chicken should have been child’s play.
So, why are we spending these colossal sums of monies importing such things, like vegetables, into tropical Ghana and Africa?
I also found Mr. Kyerematen’s answer to be discomfiting for a number of reasons.
The first is that over the past five years, Ghana has been implementing a policy called ‘Planting for Food and Jobs.’ That policy has been driven by the Minister for Agriculture. Mr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto. We have been regaled and bombarded about the success of this program, yet, it turned out that we have spent nearly thirteen billion cedis importing the same products that this program was supposed to be producing. Was the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ policy a success or not? If Mr. Kyerematen is to be believed, it has been a signal and monumental failure. Ghana is still a major importer of all staples, in spite of our pumping in billions of cedis into this policy.
We should also not be looking at this matter only from the point of view of meeting the dietary needs of the people, but the point of view of the effect on the balance of trade as well. Ghana’s trade balance has always been in the negative. We import much, much more than we produce, which is why our currency is consistently falling against other major trading currencies, and unemployment has become a debilitating disease for Ghana. And addressing this malaise is the specific job of the Minister of Trade Alan Kyerematen. Come to think of it, the name of Mr. Alan Kyerematen, the Minister of Trade, has been harrowingly missing from all debates about job creation in this country in recent times when he should have been at the forefront of all debates on job creation.
It is interesting, that Mr. Kyerematen would come confidently to parliament to list these woeful figures without thought as to the fact that he was supposed to be helping Ghana even our trade balance and create jobs at the same time. That is why we spent GHc720 million electing the man who appointed him as Trade Minister, and that is why we spend sixty per cent of our recurrent expenditure paying him and the likes of Dr. Afriyie Akoto as ministers. To him who much is given, much is expected.
Then again, looked at economically, the figure put forward by Mr. Kyerematen illustrates a great national tragedy. Ghana has 216 districts. If one divides GH₵12.748 billion by 216, one gets the figure GHc59,018,518.00. That is nearly sixty million Ghana cedis. If we had produced the rice, meat, fish and vegetables in our districts instead of importing them, we would have pumped GHc60 million cedis into our districts and local economies in just four years. That is more than what cocoa brings into the districts.
So, why are we paying Mr. Alan Kyerematen and Dr. Afriyie Akoto to continue to be ministers, when they preside over this woeful economic malaise?
Before I go, I must make a point. President Akufo-Addo is one of my favourite people. He has a gift, an admirable gift, an earthy sarcasm that he can bring to bear when the need arises. In a recent interaction with the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II in Kumasi, in the capital of the Ashanti Region, the President felt the need to introduce members of his team to the Asantehene. Among the team were Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, the Minister of Trade, and Mr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister of Agriculture. The President commented (I don’t know whether sarcastically) that they were both seeking to be President after him.
Ordinarily, seeing that I know both gentlemen well, I would have wished them luck. But then I recalled the parable of the talents, and what happened to the talentless servant.
Then I ask, why on earth should we allow such total lack of talent, such total lack of ability, near a presidency? Mr. Alan Kyerematen and Dr. Afriyie Akoto should not be running for President until they prove to us that the figures that were given to parliament the other day, are not true figures.
Source: The Daily Searchlight