This society is slowly slipping away
By Ghanaian Chronicle
The Chronicle has made a number of submissions on the basis that in spite the roof-top advertisement of building a Better Ghana, in which the economy has been transformed beyond the wildest estimation of those who have the duty of fixing the problem, this country is unable to sustain a meaningful life for the mass of the people.
It has just been relayed that cement, for instance, is doing the rounds at GH¢25 a bag. Before the coming of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills on January 7, 2009, cement sold at GH¢7 on the open market. Whatever accounts for this steep increase in price, it shoots down the concept of a Better Ghana, given the steep rises in other commodities without a corresponding rise in the ordinary man’s income. As a matter of fact, incomes are nothing to write home about when the majority of our people have very little means of income or none at all.
We are not worried one-bit about rottweilers calling The Chronicle all sorts of names to earn their pay packets from the dwindling state resources. Our experience of retaining an independent mind in a regime that believes in rewarding praise singers and frowning on the truth is that messages put out there that do not attract insults and name-calling by the so-called Government Communications Team, might not have attracted the attention of the authorities of state at all.
At a time the average Ghanaian cannot afford a meal of any type for the family, it is insensitive for those directing state policy to continue to hammer on an economic miracle that has no basis in reality. Anybody who shops in Ghana, either in the traditional market or supermarkets, would undoubtedly be aware that price increases in Ghana cannot, in all certainties, be in single digit.
That is why The Chronicle is of the view that the Government Statistician is destroying the very basis of the state economy by churning out inflation figures that have no bearings on the reality on the ground. The Ghana Statistical Service should educate all of us on why cement, for instance, is not part of the so-called 240 items from 40 markets in Ghana used in calculating inflation.
Are we being told that the cost of cement has no bearing on the economy, when the three basic necessities of life are food, shelter and clothing?
There is something fundamentally wrong at the Ghana Statistical Service. Two years ago, the state funded the service to conduct a Population and Housing Census to give us statistical figures on our population for planning the nation and its economy. Nearly two years after the exercise, the Government Statistician has been unable to tell us how many we are, and how we are spread in the regions and districts.
Instead of being concerned about its failings, the Statistical Service held a press conference the other day, and behaved as if it is a wing of the propaganda outfit of the ruling National Democratic Congress. The Chronicle agonizes so much about this society slipping away and still being touted by those building mansions from the failure of the state institutions as if Ghana has suddenly been transformed into an utopian society.
The Chronicle is inviting the mass of our people to take a harder look at the way the ship of state is drifting aimlessly on the high seas with the captain fast asleep, and decide for themselves whether this is what we bargained for when we last went to the polls.
It is sad to state, but this society is slipping away!
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