Opinions of Thursday, 9 August 2018

Columnist: Riverson Oppong, PhD

A wake up call for Ghana

The writer, Dr. Riverson Oppong The writer, Dr. Riverson Oppong

Spent the whole day indoors - ruminating about Ghana’s Economy:
In 1960 1 USD was worth 1.40 Cedis, today the USD is worth 48,000 Cedis and we as a people have deluded ourselves by saying it is worth 4.80 Ghana Cedis.

In one generation, we have totally plundered the value of our nation: whilst the South East Asians and African Countries like Rwanda have lifted themselves out of poverty. We have proudly proclaimed that our times were better and these days, times are hard.

Even powerful intellectuals whom the nation spent thousands of dollars to train would point to politicians as haven been solely responsible for our destiny. Apart from a few ready to suffer agony for the sake of the nation, most would rather go private and strike a deal with the establishment.

Now the timber is gone, next would be the yellow gold then the black gold (crude) and with them, more of our heritage. Unless we begin to take human resource development seriously and the inherent ability of a collective people to change our destiny; our primacy as the first to become independent in the sub-Saharan region would be meaningless.

We took off first but our drive for display and pageantry as well the delicacies only the western world can afford is alas sapping all the gains our ancestors passed on to us (Another typical example is Nigeria and Angola). Whereas time has been lost, our collective destiny may be redeemable should “Ghana” wake up.