A leader is synonymous to light that goes ahead of his or her people in their quest to attain set goals and targets. The leader shows and makes known the way to the people to enable them take advantage of opportunities that lie in there for their personal and national development.

Care must be taken in this our dear nation Ghana the kind of legacy we are benchmarking for posterity. What are we priding ourselves with, thoughts of what we wish to do or what we have done? Let’s look around us, our fathers’ dissipated national resources and we are continuing or the present generation is simply confused as to how to solve present predicaments.

Ghana Airways, the pride of the Ghanaian at home and especially abroad was sold to an organisation or entity that had no track record of operating an airline. It was true the airliner had a millstone of debt hanging around the neck, but that could not be enough justification to hastily dispatch such a national asset carelessly. Today, when we look up into the air it is minus Ghana Airways. Ingeniously, one of the planes has been converted into a restaurant. Do you care to know what this means? Our fathers’ built and we could not add to it, but destroy. Kenya, Ethiopia, Ivory airlines and the rest are flying across our skies, where is Ghana Airways? Ghana International Air is no more, which means Ghana the gateway to Africa has no airline.

Again, Ghana Telecommunications or Ghana Telecom, the former operators of OneTouch mobile network with the monopoly on all land telephone lines and other products were also sold to Vodafone. The regime at the time like today used their majority in the legislature to push through the determined quest to dispose of such a national property. Though, Vodafone – UK has some pedigree in the telecom industry, we gave up our asset cheap. Is this the gateway to Africa? This very entity had previously been handed to Malaysia then was known as Telecom Malaysia. Later, Holland also came up, as Telenor. Will it be right for one to believe that we are incapable of managing anything called national property or it is sheer callousness? This has passed the sickening stage to amplified nauseating.

Our work attitude and approach towards national assets management has always forced the sale of what are so dear to us, as a people. Are we really managing our own affairs?

Currently, it is the Merchant Bank being sold to Fortiz Equity Company Limited. The information available indicates that, Fortiz Equity Company Limited was formed some few months ago. The track record in the field of Banking of this entity is unknown. The majority in Parliament are not utilizing their numerical strength to prevent the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz Equity Company. Same prevailed during the sale of Ghana Telecom. Irrespective of the plea from civil society, pressure groups and religious bodies Ghana Telecom was sold off. Today, the majority cannot allow the minority to rule, thereby creating a mock environment of apartheid. Why the replay of this scenario, back and fore? As a nation we keep on hurting our national pride time and again. For what reason(s) only time would tell.

Major national corporations are either fully or partly sold. Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) had to sell The Trust Bank (TTB) to Ecobank and now it is the turn of Merchant Bank. For Bank for Housing the soul and spirit are long snuffed out like an already dimly wick. Ghana Film has now Company added to its name. I am not wholly against Private Public Partnership (PPP) and Private enterprise, but the way we let go certain national assets with lots of questions strings hanging around them is a sense of worry. How long will this continue?

What has culminated in these sales? As citizens our attitude towards national property management has been nothing a tale to tell generations to come. We simply run them aground then call for resuscitation to keep it running. Poorly performing entities of Ghana are sold only for it to fall into good managerial hands and in no time turn out to be brands that are winning all the industrial awards. How come we are able to run our personal companies successfully, but fail when it comes to national assets?

Aburi Botanical Gardens which use to be a tourist site for many home and out of the shores of Ghana has been left to rot. Currently it has been shut down. The last time television cameras were pan around the Gardens’ it was an eyesore. What I know is a person gets better with time and years would be the best teacher, but in the case of Ghana, we get worse. The elite entrusted with positions get worse as time passes. No wonder when Ghana claimed to be the gateway to Africa, Nigeria indicated they were the final destination. Can authorities legislate that, proceeds from the gardens, a portion should be set aside for the purposes of maintaining the roads leading to the site as well as the facility? If this is done I believe the Aburi Botanical Gardens will stand the test of time.

When a page of this human and natural resources rich country of ours is opened, all that is there to peruse are litanies of sold, sold and sold national assets. Why? You may Google the answer. Sometimes, I am forced to believe that, the very destroyers of our society are the very people society has educated and cared for.

What have we got to do to prevent this pandemic in our national assets sale? We need to simply eschew this negative nose dive tendencies which has reduced our national pride into priding ourselves in foreign managed former fully owned government enterprises. The more we work till our hands are raw to maintain and make viable state enterprises, then would jobs be available to the thousands of unemployed graduates. Profits from these national establishments would be retained in Ghana for development projects. If the current trend doesn’t change for the better, the rate of graduate unemployment would rather swell.

Let’s spend a minute on Ghana Water Company Limited; it has equally suffered the Ghanaian passion of passing it from one foreign management to the other such as AVRL. Does Ghana lack the needed human resource to do same work which these expats come here to do?

State Transport Company formerly Corporation (STC), is currently ailing, bleeding badly and gradually grinding to a halt. An entity which served as an alternative to none when it came to long distance travel, even to some African countries has seen it fleet of buses deplete. Today, with all the experience in human resource available to the Company, it is nothing but a pale shadow of itself. City Express (Tata) and Omnibus Service Authority otherwise known as OSA, were all run aground. Is the problem with our educational system or a deep seated laziness?

Social Security Bank (SSB) has for some years now been prefixed with Societe Generale (SG-SSB). In the not too distance future, the name would completely change to Societe Generale (SG).

This is what I am calling on the youth of Ghana to help prevent. In every corner of the nation that we find ourselves, it is incumbent on us to uphold discipline, hard work and transparency. There must be a revolution in attitude to stem the tide of divestiture of state enterprises. Sometimes it gets embarrassing with the caliber of people at the helm of affairs, but the state asset keep going down.

Let us tell ourselves especially the youth of Ghana, never again will this repeat itself in our lifetime Remember posterity will judge us. Guess what the verdict would be.

May God have mercy on us all.