Opinions of Friday, 18 August 2023

Columnist: Abdul Hakeem

Ghana's prostitution tax', a mayanka economy and the IMF propaganda

A file photo A file photo

Fellow Ghanaians, believe it or not, according to Margaret Mitchell, there’s never a convenient time for neither death, taxes, or childbirth! And Bill Vaughan adduces that, “the tax collector must be a lover of poverty and poor people because he’s creating so many of them.”

It is as clear as crystal, that at this juncture of our national condemnation and damnation, humiliation, and annihilation, the only way President Akufo Addo can escape the snowballing tensions and frustrations of the Ghanaian citizen, as the first emperor of China did, is to consider the escort of terracotta warriors and army in this and his next life if the armed forces of Ghana are too disciplined, or timid, or just being careful not to overthrow a mess they can’t manage, won’t take Ghana down the way of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.

Today the question that begs for an answer is, is President Akufo Addo still the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces or he has long jettisoned that title and has now become the Commander-In- Thief of Ghana Armed Robbers (referring to the official armed robbers occupying public offices under his government)?

In a viral video circulating on social media, some schoolchildren are captured bitterly slapping the statue of President Akufo Addo’s father for bringing to this world such a profligate son. At least, why in Ghana? Why didn’t Akufo Addo’s parents Burkinabes or from Mali or Niger where he would have been serving as president?

It was the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Hoang Di, who realized the unfathomable mess during his reign as Emperor (242BC-12BC) was quite colossal and unforgivable so he ordered the creation of the Terracotta army as guards for him in the next life after his quest for immortality through excessive sexual intercourse and later, resorted to the drinking of mercury not to die, both proved futile. Little did the Emperor know the duo – excessive sexual intercourse and drinking of mercury – were rather the hidden keys to his mortality.

If President Akufo Addo won’t create a terracotta army for anything else, he would do it for the numerous taxes he has imposed on Ghanaians with one hand and siphoning with the other – corruption.

So far, among the litany of taxes we are afflicted with by the godforsaken government of Akufo Addo, the only thing that has not been taxed yet is commercial sex trading – prostitution. Though very cheap, the female sex organ has become the most marketable and viable commodity in recent times. It doesn’t take rocket science today to access the female jade gate. With your smartphone, you can watch and fondle the way you like, with somebody’s mother’s, sister’s, daughter’s, or even wife’s vagina. Free of charge!

Because Dr. Bawumia has digitized everything. Won’t some ladies be reminded that if God wanted everybody to watch their sexual organs, He would have created in on their foreheads? It’s sickening the level of immorality these days. Perhaps, president Akufo Addo would soon tax such ladies. Let’s see.

But nobody should be surprised if one morning the Akufo Addo administration decides to tax sexual intercourse in general in the country. That is, spouses would be required to report to the Ghana Revenue Authority their sexual encounter the previous night. I foresee the government taxing the number of rounds spouses go during intimacy, and the tax for daytime sex would be heavier than for night sexual intercourse. This is how odious, loathsome President Akufo Addo has made governance in this country to be. Going forward, I see homosexuality legalized in Ghana to tax the country’s modern-day brothers of Sodomy and Gomorrah. Yes, it’s coming.

That is why the former president, and by the grace of Allah, the next president, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, has been worried about the unfortunate taxes imposed upon a hemorrhaging economy and dying nation.

The irony is that nobody knows what the taxes have been used for. But I think the recent scandal of twenty-two assemblies using 2.4 million to collect 1.3 million tax says it all, what our taxes have been used for by the Akufo Addo administration. It’s national armed robbery and criminality.

For those of you who do not know what the term ‘Mayanka’ means as part of the title of this epistle, in Ghana, specifically within the Zongo Muslims, the term refers to a place of slaughtering or a slaughterhouse - an abattoir.

But by an abattoir economy, I don’t mean the reliance of the economy on meat, or the daily slaughtering of Ghanaians by the economy, it means a day of reckoning when all our economic destroyers would be sent to a Mayanka of justice and accountability. Especially if the International Monetary Fund, IMF, keeps pampering, massaging, and glossing over the mess of the government.

Akufo-Addo became president with one aim: and that is to fulfill the legacy of his political ancestors and all those who came after him. And that is to sell the country and pocket the money. This justifies the systemic scathing attack launched upon our state institutions. Everything meaningful that ever was in the country has collapsed or is in the process of collapsing or at a stage of collapse. And the Central Bank of our dear nation is now under this criminal attack.

Next would be the body parts of Ghanaians if Akufo Addo is not compelled out of power. So, let nobody be surprised that a citizen of Ghana would wake up one morning to find a Chinese or French government official with a surgeon to harvest his heart, kidneys, eyes, or even genitalia to repay a debt the Ghana government has borrowed from China or France.

What is pathetic is the conduct of the International Monetary Fund which vows to shield the Akufo-Addo government from the vindictive wrath of the people who have messed up the economy, by aiding and abetting their gangsterism and criminality perpetrated against citizens.

The IMF has decided to take over the management of the Ghanaian economy from its looters, thieves, mismanagers, and destroyers.

However, every three months supervision of the perishing economy by the IMF has seemed to further fetch the Fund another job which is to become the propaganda extension and branch of the government. The very fraudulent tool of government which landed Ghana in this mess is what the IMF seeks to adopt in their supervisory role as far as the rescue mission of the Ghanaian economy is concerned. Propaganda and negotiations with truth and facts.

I mean, how could the IMF agree with the government that the Domestic Debt Exchange Program, DDEP, is responsible for the gradual collapse of the Central Bank of Ghana? Was it because the Governor of the Central Bank quickly jumped to that excuse? And is it not embarrassing that some key persons in the government are contradicting this narrative and claim by the Governor that the IMF is embarrassingly supporting?

For example, the Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Stephen Amoah says what is happening to the Bank of Ghana is happening globally, and it’s not any big deal. Then Miracles Boagye, a director of local government services at the presidency wants to remind Ghanaians that the so-called free electricity and water provided by the government during the lockdown period is what is responsible for the loss that has been incurred by the Bank of Ghana.

Now, where does the IMF stand? Did the Central Bank record this whopping 60.8 billion loss due to DDEP because of a global phenomenon or the free water and electricity Akufo Addo gave Ghanaians?

And where does the IMF stand? If the IMF agrees with Dr. Addison that this careless loss has been incurred due to the Domestic Debt Exchange Program (DDEP), what then caused the Central Bank of Switzerland to record a whopping 142 billion Swiss Francs last year 2022? What accounted for the loss of 36.7 billion Australian dollars by the Australian Central Bank? And why not, say, the Bank of Sweden?

I guess both these countries incurred those losses due to their DDEP if they embarked upon any. You see, according to Daniel Gros, reported by POLITICO Live, “In hindsight, it is clear that central bank’s massive bond-buying programs were a colossal mistake”. Again, the director of the Institute of Economics Affairs, IEA, Dr. John Kwakye faulted the BoG for excessive lending of cash to the government (to digitize the anguish of Ghanaians).

Another factor that has led to these unfortunate losses has been the in-your-face breach of procurement laws by the managers of the Central Bank of Ghana. And all this has been fueled by the rise in interest rates.

Therefore, what could be a result of a global phenomenon might be what Sanghani said. For him, the losses are due to the rise in interest rates. Now, if any government is complaining about a rise in interest rates that has led to the collapse of their Central Banks, like Australia or Switzerland, Ghanaians can’t complain because our economic Messiah, Dr. Bawumia came to get that arrested. So, what has changed?

How reckless is the IMF becoming in simply trying to endorse the criminality of Akufo Addo and his gangsters against the rest of the 30 million Ghanaians because they wouldn’t want Ghana to become Sri Lanka when the Fund gave honest and truthful accounts and analyses of their decaying economy? Is it not time that the IMF let the government of Ghana know that they as an international body with credibility can’t keep covering them up over the obvious, and that, they are simply less than competent to manage a country’s economy? And hence they should step down before Ghana becomes Sri Lanka if that is what the IMF is afraid of.

While I believe the IMF has been left without a choice to charter this dangerous path with the government, they might as well trigger something else, more disastrous than what happened in Sri Lanka. If citizens don’t come out to chase these criminals out of power, and the military is silent, then the IMF would soon watch the entire country perish in a devastating civil war. It would come a time Ghanaians can’t take it anymore with the cocktail of lies the IMF is helping the Ghana government to serve the citizens.

I am a staunchest advocate and supporter of democratic and civil governance, and would not want our current republican status and constitutionalism we are enjoying to be compromised and shelved for a military takeover. However, with the level of mismanagement ongoing, if President Akufo Addo doesn’t step down with his boatload of political buccaneers and economic vultures, Ghana may go the way of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali all combined – civil war (is looming).

It is the reason why the majority of Ghanaians are questioning why the Minority in parliament didn’t extend the ultimatum given to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, to the president, ‘vice’ and his most criminal Finance minister the country is ever cursed with. Because if there’s any three-headed monster of horror that must be uprooted in our public service, it is this Trinity of economic mismanagers, calamity, and disaster: President Akufo-Addo, Ken Ofori Atta, and the ‘Vice’ President, representing corruption of the uncle, corruption the nephew, and the holy liar, respectively.

Let them give us a break; let them take their knee off our necks for we can’t breathe.