The paramount chief of the Essikado traditional area, nana Kwabena Nketsia V has come down heavily on Ghana�s ruling class for indulging in alms-seeking to finance development, in spite of the country�s abundant mineral wealth.
�China, America, France, name it, which one of them went for aid to finance their development?� he asked rather rhetorically in his opening remarks at a three-day consultative forum on Natural Resource and Environmental Governance.
Nana Nketsia noted that poverty reduction has become a delusion and that beneath a certain semblance of wealth lies ��the true and ugly face of compounded poverty and death� for many Ghanaians, especially in communities that play host to mining activities.�
�In spite of the fertile land, rich ecology, the gold, diamonds, rivers, manganese, bauxite, the salt and lately the oil, among other rich natural resources, an every expanding majority of Ghanaians live in such immeasurable poverty and squalor while the privileged, corrupt and decadent ruling class which has mismanaged our natural resources is perpetually begging for aid.�
In what he tagged �the Prestea complex� Nana Nketsia called to mind the case of Prestea, the mining town in his own region that has for over a century seen a lot of mining and yet is �wallowing in man-made poverty.�
Prestea, he noted, presents a fine case study for resource-rich but poverty stricken communities in the country.
The ever vocal traditional leader and academic is not sure if the emerging oil industry offers ordinary Ghanaians anything different from the abysmal poverty and squalor many have known under mining.
He is not even sure whether any meaningful gains are likely to be achieved in natural resource and environmental governance. �We, as a people,� he said, �have absolutely no control of our destiny. All the talk about equitable access, accountability, transparency in natural resource and environmental governance in this country is meaningless because even the control of the environment is out of our hands.�
On the other hand, he took up the importance of a collective global response to the threat posed by human activity to the environment.
�The environment is sick� he said. Nothing, he argued, brings this home better than the all encompassing issue of global warming.
It is an awesome illustration of the interconnectedness and inter-dependency of the world. More than anything else, it reveals our equality within nature and that, hamlet or city, rich or poor, religious fanatic or pagan, conservative or radical, European, Asian, African, Australian or American, we either survive or perish together.�
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