STREET CHILDREN, ANY WAY FORWARD?

Is so alarming the rate at which children in Ghana have been sentenced to living on the already congested and unsafe streets of our big cities today, particularly the capital. It is so heart breaking to see children who should be in school, the library or recreational grounds competing vigorously with adults for means of sustenance, or sleeping in the open at night.

We as a nation cannot fold our arms idle at the plight of these young citizens of the country who through no fault of theirs find themselves on the streets. The nation has the responsibility to protect the rights and welfare of all its citizens including these children.

Most of these victims are children of homeless, jobless and porter parents. During the day they help their parents to provide them with sustenance by selling on the busy streets of the cities chasing slow moving vehicles to catch the attention of passengers just to sell their wares a phenomenon which poses a danger to their lives, as some of them are knocked down by these vehicles. Others are victims of abuse particularly the girls who are most often defiled. At night these malnourished children sleep on the verandas of shops at the mercy of the weather and mosquito which is a threat to their health. These are only but a few problems street children in Ghana face.

In my opinion the best way of solving this problem is by looking into the source or cause of how these children end up in the streets. As stated earlier these are children of mostly the under privileged in society who do not have profitable jobs to do.

This raises the issue of jobs, if job opportunities could be made available to Ghanaians it will help reduce the rate of unemployment, this in turn also reduces the rate of unemployment, and this in turn also reduces the rate of homeless people.

As always government should spearhead the campaign of getting these children out of the streets, even if it means enacting laws to make it illegal for children to engage in active trading since they are not considered adults in the laws of the land.

NGOs that are involved in the work of getting these children off the streets and putting them in the classrooms should s step up their efforts to compliment that of government.

We should all join hands in helping to rid our streets of these precious children whose future should not be toyed with. This nation has come a long way in terms of development and as we aspire to achieve the MDGs by 2015 ‘streetism’ retards development and must not be encouraged.

ITS TIME TO BE PATRIOTIC

Ghanaians have once again proven to the whole world that our democracy has come of age and that we are a beacon of hope on the African continent.The voices of the people have spoken and for the second time in our political history an incumbent government has handed over power peaceful to an opposition party a feat which is rare on the continent of Africa and some parts of the world.

The elections are over and its time to put our party colours behind us and forge ahead in unity to building a stronger and better country and fighting our common enemies such as poverty,ignorance and disease.

In the face of the world economic crises whose tentacles sooner than later will be eating into our economy, its only prudent that we all take up the challenge to be loyal,committed and work harder than before.

It is in light of this that I humbly urge all well meaning Ghanaians to be patriotic to the cause of Ghana.The nation more than ever needs the loyalty of its citizen to move its development agenda forward.As a nation that prides itself as peaceful,we should take advantage of the congenial atmosphere that we enjoy to develop our society.I urge workers to enjoy the work they do in spite of the challenges that they face,and always remember that they are rendering valuable service to the nation. They should eschew all acts that are inimical to the progress of the country .

The expectations of the current government to deliver on its promise is high among Ghanaians, and as I would urge government to deliver on it promise I also hope that the citizenry unite,rally behind the government and offer constructive criticisms,so together we will be building this nation positively.

It is my prayer that as the year goes by patriotism will be one of our abiding principle.

THE THIRD TERM SYNDROME

A general trend seems to be emerging in political cycles across the world. A trend we could call ‘the third term syndrome’. A syndrome where political parties in power loses more seats in parliaments or the senate to opposition parties usually after two terms in power, and Ghana is no exception. In this article we shall seek to diagnose some of the causes of this so called syndrome and try to suggest some remedies.

Most electorate vest power in their representatives based on promises the candidates tell them, and so after a two term tenure when the electorate feel the promises are unfulfilled it is difficult to offer them a third term, so most of these candidates especially those belonging to the ruling party are not re-elected into office.

When the populaces have a sense of perceived or real corruption against a ruling government, it tends to affect their popularity. Also the perception that Mps have suddenly risen from grass to grace feeds into that perception or line of argument and the Mps pay dearly for that.

Most politicians after having been given the nod a second time begin to get complacent and over-confident, and so refuse to heed to the genuine cry of the people to solve some of their problems but rather do their own bidding, which the people might not like or support.

Members of parliament who have stayed for so long in office begin to lose favour with the people, and their popularity begins to dwindle. The electorate in this case want to see a new face or a total change in their representatives, but national office of the party endorse these candidates to the detriment of the party.

Foot soldiers are the people at the grass root level within each constituency that mobilize the people to campaign for the party at the national level and the Member of Parliament. Sometimes some of these so called foot soldiers are neglected by their ‘bosses’ and this creates some amount of dissatisfaction amongst the foot soldiers, who tend to ignore their duties and in some extreme cases campaign against their own party.

Another issue leading to this syndrome is the ignoring of some legitimate concerns of the people, as well as Mps and ministers of state becoming elusive. At the beginning they assure their constituents that they will be in touch with them at all times, but some of these Mps don’t keep their pledge when the going gets tough, and they decide to stay out of touch with their people. These conditions breed a lot of contempt amongst people and the only way they can vent their spleen is through the ballot box, by voting out these Mps.

Several remedies can be made to these individual problems, but a general remedy in my opinion is that politicians should always have it in mind that they are dealing with people who gave them the authority to serve on their behalf. They should not see this as an opportunity to amass wealth and lord themselves over the people but rather strive hard to meet the needs and aspirations of the people, stay in touch with their people through the good and bad times, and as much as possible root out corruption and be fair, just and truthful in all their dealings.