No Jobs No Hope! Ghana Is Drifting To Nowhere After NDC Over-Spends People�s Money

The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) says the National Democratic Congress administration of President John Dramani Mahama has reduced the nation into a society, drifting along with no jobs and no hope, in spite of spending GH�8.7 billion of the people�s money over the budgeted allocation for the year 2012. �This is the most challenging period of our generation, with no jobs and no hope, piling debts, corruption caused by a President whose character trait is indecision. Governance in Ghana has been reduced to ad hoc, costly decisions, and an obsession with pleasing everybody and ending up hurting everybody,� AFAG said in an official statement announcing a march in Accra on Tuesday, March 26, in protest against the high cost of living, corruption, and mal-administration plaguing the body politic. The theme of the march, according to the organisers, is �Mieku-Wum�, supposed to be an Ewe expression, meaning we are dying. The demonstration is to take the marchers from Obra Spot at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, to Hearts of Oak�s training grounds near the beach in Central Accra. �This demonstration has become necessary, because we can�t sit aloof to see the wanton dissipation of our scarce financial resources, as this continues to weaken our state institutions,� the statement said. AFAG charged the Mahama administration with reckless spending, while the people lacked electricity water, health and other essential services. �Ghanaians are bound to ask, where did the millions of dollars spent on the elections come from, if not mainly from our own coffers? The most frustrating thing of the way the NDC government, under John Mahama, has treated us, is that after misapplying recklessly our money to buy and/or steal our votes in 2012, it has come back to the people in 2013, to ask us to tighten our belts and pay for the reckless corruption and overspending that it imposed on us,� AFAG stated. The statement wondered why this administration was hell-bent on spending more money to send pastors who have not asked for any favours, to be sent to Jerusalem at state expense, at a time when virtually all essential services were collapsing. AFAG said Ghanaians were facing the worst economic situation ever in the 56 year-old nationhood, as a result of massive corruption, weak leadership, and poor economic management. At the same time, ordinary people were confronted with severe problems of high food prices, high fuel cost, and pending increases in the prices of utilities, and allied expenditure. �This is the most challenging period of our generation, with no jobs and no hope, piling on debts, and massive corruption,� AFAG stated. The organisers of the march said there was no sign of the erratic electricity and water supply abating, while the living conditions of most citizens continued to slide. �There are still no signs of jobs for our masses. No sign of when we will get electricity to power our small-scale industries that put food on the table.� AFAG also weighed in on expensive school fees, resulting in kids preparing for their examinations being sent home from school. �Children are being sent home, because secondary school fees have not been paid, and yet, there is not a programme to show how this government intends to address the affordable education it promised.� AFAG complained about the collapsing nature of the National Health Insurance Scheme, which was putting many Ghanaians at risk from lack of medical care, because the authorities were diverting the 2.5 percent NHIA Levy into unapproved expenditures. The statement said over the past four years, the cumulative debt of the nation had increased to well over 300 percent, the highest since independence on March 6, 1957. �The current economy, AFAG stated, can be likened to a comatose patient at the intensive care unit without a diagnosis,� stating that the nation needed a change in its political and economic direction, and that while the nation waited on the Supreme Court to pronounce on the petition by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and two other leaders of the New Patriotic Party in the 2012 election dispute, the country would continue to suffer from mal-administration and economic mis-direction.