I am on a morning run to Korle Bu hospital, my sixth run so far to give a basket of fruit to Arnold, a bosom buddy recuperating from minor surgery.\u00a0I have come to understand why everything is so underserved in this hospital, stories of horror float in the car park making the trip to the surgical ward one tentative step tripping after the next.<\/p>\n
But that is not the story.\u00a0 Wednesday, I decided to make a detour to avoid the early mortuary road traffic and bypassed through the suburbs of Chorkor.\u00a0 It has been a while since I went that way and I was intrigued by the change.<\/p>\n
I slowed down at \u201cNaa Dede Best Tillapia\u201d to buy credit and Kwei Fio (I only got to know his name later) was hollering, slaps to his backside, his teenage mother bent on marking his butt for life with a leather belt.\u00a0 It was a bit too much and I stepped out of the car to reprieve (now) my boy and urge Ashikai to hold up a bit.<\/p>\n
Well, Kwei Fio was on a \u201cno one cedi, no school\u201d protest and \u201cauthority mum\u201d was damned if she would accept this challenge to her parenthood.\u00a0 She had offered Kwei Fio fifty pesewas but he said the reduced \u201cwage\u201d would dent his toffee-acquiring image at school.<\/p>\n
I pleaded, I succeeded and we came to a compromise.\u00a0 Things were tough, sales were very slow and Ashikai needed her son to give her more time to resolve this.<\/p>\n
So I offered to give Kwei Fio\u2019s one cedi a day allowance a bump and help with the regular payments as long as he went to school everyday.\u00a0 We agreed that I would send the money by mobile money and Kwei would go the MTN office just across the road with his mother\u2019s phone every week and collect his allowance, which Ashikai would dish out by the day.<\/p>\n
But it was what Kwei said when he was bucketing a bath by the side of the road that prompted this write up.\u00a0 Sobbing and hiccupping in between as he washed head down, he muttered loud enough within earshot in Ga, \u201co yi mi aa hu, mi doro f33 e su\u201d.<\/p>\n
I need a local language symbols database.\u00a0 Anyone out there to help?<\/p>\n
Translated, Kwei was complaining that Ashikai had beaten him so severely, his testicles had shrunk.\u00a0 Said in Ga, it has more impact.\u00a0 His testicular \u201ckra\u201d had been breached.<\/p>\n
I chuckled all the way home, wondering why Kwei felt emasculated rather than victorious?\u00a0 His protest had secured his school-going perk for at least a term.<\/p>\n
I am proud of him not accepting the reduction in fees, and we have since become good buddies.\u00a0 He calls every now and then to say thank you.\u00a0 My future citizens advocate.<\/p>\n
So this is July.\u00a0 Second half of 2014 and we are waiting for all the measures Government has put in place to take hold and roll out the \u201cBetter Ghana\u201d program.\u00a0 We are developing our own \u201chome grown\u201d solutions to the \u201cchallenges\u201d.\u00a0 Ashikai is also hopeful.<\/p>\n
Up till now, I have not heard or read a coherent passage about what we are growing at home and what we are addressing, since Government talking heads say solutions are working, we are blind to all that they are doing and we refuse to see the good.<\/p>\n
The only persons who seem to know what this economy is all about are Moody\u2019s and Fitch and they are not saying too much in favor of the \u201cfree range, home grown\u201d.<\/p>\n
This past week, Moody\u2019s downgraded Ghana\u2019s international rating to B2 negative.\u00a0 A radio station was concerned enough to call and ask, \u201cna si 3 ni s3n?\u201d.\u00a0 We talked about it in the local and they thanked me for explaining this \u201calien\u201d term.<\/p>\n
But what the West does not understand, and we defy all economic logic, is how we are managing this country.<\/p>\n
Development economists have evolved theories on predictability of interacting parameters, and by extrapolation they expect certain related outcomes despite their weak clutch about Ghana; the fact that we do not capture and reflect accurately the complex intermingling of the informal sector in the overall economy in Ghana.<\/p>\n
Not that we understand it any better ourselves.<\/p>\n
But it could be very simple if you look at it closer.<\/p>\n
The ancient Chinese described Qi as “life force”. They believe Qi permeates everything and links their surroundings together. They liken it to the flow of energy around and through the body, forming a cohesive and functioning unit.\u00a0 By understanding its rhythm and flow they believe they can guide exercises and treatments to provide stability and longevity.<\/p>\n
Now if you are aware of the relationship between Kra, mogya and ntoro, you will see the similarities.<\/p>\n
Woman transmits mogya or abusua within a person, while the male donates the ntoro (soul or spirit).\u00a0 Added to this is your kra, which can be any one of seven forms derived from the day of the week you are born.\u00a0 Your person is thus shaped by these life forces, nurtured in a clan.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the many economic questions Moody\u2019s and Fitch want answered are situated within our belief in tomorrow and a future managed on our behalf by religious belief.\u00a0 So like the Chinese we are inseparable from the spirit world, except the Chinese have found a formula that works.<\/p>\n
This NDC Government\u2019s debt accumulation reflects the overconfidence it has in its ability to sustain revenue and GDP growth.\u00a0 They have grossly underestimated the impact of their forecasting error rate and led us into a future of heavy debt, as the payoff leverage appears more attractive on paper but compounds the fragility in the economy with unsupported overconfidence in repetitively failing solutions.<\/p>\n
The risk of becoming a failed state is mitigated only by the implanted belief of Ghanaians that as long as the Lord is watching over us, we will sail through.<\/p>\n
No historical statistic can capture the faith factor in predicting the future.\u00a0 That Ghanaians are hopeful and look to our leaders to establish a link of dependency on the spirit world is the only reason we are not on the streets.<\/p>\n
Government has overestimated their knowledge about our economic future, suggesting that religion will provide intoxicating tricks to mitigate failure.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t have answers to this problem\u201d seems harder to say and accept, than \u201cGod will see us through\u201d, which is easier on the political ego.<\/p>\n
So when Nana Akufo Addo brought up the issue of retrogression, it is historically accurate and can be seen in the macro statistics of the economy.<\/p>\n
But how real is it and did the reverse \u201cmidas touch to dust\u201d comment fuel or disturb our religious risk mitigating beliefs?\u00a0 Does the political rhetoric work better at this time of crisis or push us deeper into religious mystique?<\/p>\n
A group of concerned citizens marched to an \u201coccupy flagstaff\u201d beat.\u00a0 Labeled middle class, they dared the wrath of Government and presented a petition of twenty odd demands.<\/p>\n
President Mahama responded through his aides, to say he cares and will endeavor to look at their list.\u00a0 End of story?<\/p>\n
We quickly shifted our minds to the 10,400 SHS students who will have to go to school to pick up their allocation of sanitary pads and not miss classes during their periods, which Nature bequeathed on them so they can propagate Homo sapiens.\u00a0 It is too frivolous to make a meal of it.\u00a0 There are bigger issues in the monitoring and report back of such previous schemes, none of which we know the impact.<\/p>\n
We give out free uniforms, free food, free textbooks, and we are going to give free shoes, yet the children are still not attending classes regularly.\u00a0 Eh bei!<\/p>\n
And now we are running out of avenues for redress.\u00a0 Our Government is simply taking away our \u201ckra\u201d to fight on and seek finer ways of living, piling our plates with more than a fair share of corruption scandals.<\/p>\n
Government and the Ghana Football Association violated the Foreign Exchange Act when they flew three million dollars cash in a plane to Brazil.\u00a0 Who is going to stifle this cacophony?\u00a0 Even the Institute of Chartered Accountants made a rare statement with a full page in the Daily Graphic bringing up its concerns.<\/p>\n
But the electricity supply seems to have stabilized somewhat, more consistent and it cannot be because ECG wants us to watch more of the World Cup.\u00a0 It appears there is a fix in the supply side from the TICO plant.\u00a0 I hope I am right.<\/p>\n
Ghana, Aha a ye de papa.\u00a0 Alius valde week advenio. Another great week to come!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: Sydney Casely-Hayford|sydney@bizghana.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am on a morning run to Korle Bu hospital, my sixth run so far to give a basket of fruit to Arnold, a bosom buddy recuperating from minor surgery.\u00a0I have come to understand why everything is so underserved in this hospital, stories of horror float in the car park making the trip to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[8],"yoast_head":"\n