The cause of Underdevelopment in Ghana – SB Bitian writes

Ghana is an underdeveloped country. One of the biggest challenges of our successive presidents has always been to close the infrastructural deficit of the country. We as of today, still have many communities that are not connected to the national grid, have no motorable roads, have no schools and hospitals, and many other basic social amenities.

We pay our taxes to the government and in return the government has the responsibility of using the same on developmental projects which would benefit the average Ghanaian.

A trend has reared its ugly head in our contemporary dispensation. It is what I call ‘ELECTION – CENTERED’ politics. This is when political players go to every extent to score political points from what they do with our taxes. It would interest you to know that, the average Ghanaian thinks it is a favor for the government to give them facilities like roads, schools, hospitals, electricity, amongst others. This is true to some extent since we have decided not to seek accountability nor demand for our right to basic social amenities, we have no choice than to sing praises to our political actors.

We still have children learning under trees, pupils writing on blocks, health care is administered in the sun, overcrowded school dormitories, poor road network, and many towns that are yet to have their share of the national grid.

The major cause of this problem is the abandonment of projects which were started during a different regime by successive governments.
We cannot talk about willfully causing financial loss to the state without mentioning the abandonment of projects. I must say we are the cause of our own woes.

I have followed with shock, recent fights over who owns projects going on between the two leading political parties’ foot soldiers. This awkward behavior by these uninformed foot soldiers has cost the nation billions of money. It doesn’t bring any benefit for anybody to claim ownership for what he used our money to do. There is the fear of being attacked by party apparatchiks for stealing projects in our presidents. And this has led to the current hardships we find ourselves in.

The forty-year-old abandoned maternity block at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) came as no surprise at all. Presidents who have ruled the nation after the overthrow of IK Acheampong found no reason to complete this project he started in 1974 because of politics. Innocent lives have been lost because of the neglect of that project.

The losses as a result of the abandoned affordable housing started in HE J.A.Kuffour’s era, the abandoned University of Ghana Medical Centre, and the various CHPS Compounds started in H.E. J.D.Mahama’s era are not quantifiable. For the sake of petty partisan politics, projects initiated with the taxpayer’s money are being recklessly abandoned.

Until we learn to know no president owns a project, we would be continued to be taken for a ride.

It is a mark of the unpatriotic to mock any president for continuing a project that was initiated by a different party.
Let him who has an ear, listen !!

I am a citizen.

Authored by:  SIMON BITIAN BOAKYE