THE UPS AND DOWNS OF PRESIDENT NANA AKUFO ADDO’S GOVERNMENT

President Nana Akufo Addo’s government has delivered quite a lot of development projects at its young age of two (2) years. A lot of changes have been brought indeed. The most laudable achievement of Akufo Addo’s reign is unquestionably, the successful implementation of the free senior high school policy; an intelligent educational initiative which has succeeded in sending nearly all qualified Junior High School leavers to the second cycle institutions. I’m so proud of the president for disappointing his political naysayers with the free SHS initiative. One can only hope and pray that a good policy such as this stays to produce useful outcomes. Even though the free SHS policy isn’t flawless, some parents have been relieved of the economic burdens of paying school fees.

As if the free senior high school rollout wasn’t enough, the current government solved an important problem in geolocation by introducing an electronic/computerized location-tracking software. The Ghana Post GPS application is a groundbreaking idea. As a concerned neutral citizen and a tech fanatic, I fully endorse and pat the government on the back for resorting to technology to help in digital property addressing system. The president and his governing team deserve a lot of congratulations. The Ghana Post GPS app makes the acquisition of addresses of institutions very convenient. Users can search for digital address of faraway places without stepping a foot there. The app can also be used by the police and emergency workers to correctly track the location of criminals and accident spots, provided they are fed with the coordinates of the scenes. This is indeed an innovative project.

However, I don’t want to talk about the ‘double track SHS policy’. It is only time which can speak more to us about the future of this dangerous experiment. In the meantime, let’s wish the naïve victims of this catastrophe the best of luck. We have to patiently wait till the first batch of the double track system come out with WASSCE results, then we can judge accordingly. Another controversial policy of Akufo Addo’s government is the introduction of the Ghana Card; a supposed national identification card which will serve to wipe out illegal Ghanaian citizens from the national voter’s register. Factually, even though the policy isn’t so stupid, the requirements for registering the citizens is unfair. How many Ghanaians have passports? The funny part of this Ghana card thing is the astronomical figures associated with the cost of producing the cards. I’m not good at keeping numbers, but I can recollect that it runs into billions of dollars. How wise is it for a government with hungry citizens to spend our public purse on an expensive voter card? Meanwhile, all citizens already have voter ID cards which successfully do all transactions for us.

Surprising Ghanaians once again with utmost stupidity, the Akufo Addo’s administration decided to introduce TIN-Tax Identification Number. Here, I don’t mean to criticize this yet to be fully implemented tax policy, but a little background checks show that TIN will be required for doing a lot of transactions. I can confidently conclude that, in no time, a TIN will be required before one can even use a public toilet. Placing a lot of restrictions or requirements around TIN, it ends up destroying the good name of the policy. Let me stop here before I lose my temper.

Perhaps, the dumbest decisions of Akufo Addo’s government is their intent to build a national cathedral. I cringe at the level of stupidity displayed in this policy. In case we don’t know, a cathedral is a large church building. According to one English dictionary, a cathedral is usually the central church in a bishop’s diocese and contains the episcopal throne. We can clearly see that a cathedral is a Christian worship center. It is highly discriminatory to build a national worship center for Christians, while neglecting Muslims, Traditionalists and other different religious bodies. Ghana is a country of mixed religions. How can a government be bias enough to focus on the needs of only Christians, simply because they constitute the majority? It is evident here that they are only buying votes for the future. Looking at the poor road networks in our country, a wise government will never dream of building churches. It was so regrettable when I read from a newspaper publication where the president boldly described the national cathedral idea as a national priority. I think the president has a misguided notion about what constitutes a priority. The national cathedral is a selfish individualistic agenda, not a national priority. How did he arrive at that statement, “national priority”? Did they conduct a poll to garner public views about this wolf in sheep’s clothing, called national cathedral? This a completely counterintuitive policy and it must be suspended as soon as possible.

Ghanaians are starving, and here you are, building churches. You haven’t paid some allowances of health workers (nurses) and lot more, but you have money to build churches. Mr. president, this kind of reasoning is very laughable. Why can’t the government use such monies to construct railways from the northern part of the country to the south? Currently, it takes not less than fourteen (14) hours to travel from the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga to Accra. Some drivers get sleepy after driving for many hours. They eventually lose their concentration and collide with other vehicles, killing people. How can a dead man worship in a cathedral? Ahh! I’m beginning to lose my temper again? Let me stop here.

To wrap my write-up, I mean that the Akufo Addo’s administration has implemented good policies such as free SHS, NABCO, Ghana Post GPS, restoration of teachers/nurses allowances and so on. However, the same government also managed to tarnish its good reputation by formulating very questionable ideologies such as National Cathedral, Ghana card, Tax Identification (TIN), Double Track SHS system, national service for teacher trainees and others. In spite of these, I must also state that, there are other good policies of Nana Addo’s administration such as ‘One Village One Dam’, ‘One District One Factory’, ‘One Constituency One Million Dollar’. The only issue is that most of these good policies are yet to see the light of the day. The president must reconsider some of his controversial decisions if he wishes not to incur the wrath of Ghanaians.

Thank you.

Writer: Robert Abalungo (Bob Bright)

BSc. Physics, KNUST

Find me on Facebook.com/RobertBobBright

Follow me on Twitter @Robert_Abalungo

Call or WhatsApp me: +233549086173

Send me a mail: robaba73@gmail.com