Where is the Child that so proudly sang "God Bless Our Homeland Ghana".

Ghana is one of the few countries whose national anthem is a prayer to

God and not just a song of virtue and pride. As school pupils we proudly

sang this song each morning before lessons and each time God was

listening to our prayers and blessing our country with peace and steady

progress. Now much older, many people have engaged in acts that is

destroying this country. The people working the Tema port must have

quickly forgotten the song of prayer they sang for their country each

school day and have even changed into undermining the country. The

Tema port has been turned into a deal making centre where everyone is

just not interest in doing the job there are paid to do.

Getting Away with Criminal Activities

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that the unfortunate situation at the

Tema harbor being perpetuated by criminal who have to be jail but that will not

be right. Many of the people there might be fairly decent people who started

work there on a very good note until they were swept into this practice of stealing

and extortion. The leadership of this country needs to be ashamed of this

mediocre leadership standards, because it will not be too difficult to set up

a system that will not permit such pervasive criminality. So many people

have had their property either vandalized or stolen at the port and have made

this public but leadership did not listen. The practice have gone on so long that

anyone who went to the port just compiled and did not ask question. Its true

that no human institution will be perfect, but effort should be made to minimize

the occurrence of such criminalities.

Simple Solutions for Checks and Balances

Where are the shipments bound for Ghana originating from? With this kind of

information, Government can liaise with counterpart governments oversees to

obtain estimates of items bound for Ghana. On a monthly basis, a special unit

at the presidency is tasked to carryout comparative analysis of all shipments

arriving in Ghana in terms of their value and the corresponding revenue levels.

The fact is that every shipment leaving Singapore or Japan is known to the port

authorities there, The problems is the declaration of the value to Ghana upon

arrival for the purposes of tax evasion. Frequent appraisals by this special

presidential revenue unit will clearly indicate the margin of revenue which is

being lost and then institute corrective measures to halt the losses. Now,

if the a small unit selected by the president will also allow themselves to be

compromised by criminals then the country Ghana is better off without

any president or leaders at all.

Every National Activity Should be Closely Watched

While such sensational expose` by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, has the power

to draw attention and cause a major change, I don't think it is the most

efficient way of monitoring and dealing with crime in this country.

Creative ways are needed to look into national functions from many

different and independent angles so as to maintain integrity. Evil

thrive in the dark places and so its vital that national institutions are

forced to be transparent. Citizens should be encouraged to submit

reports of suspected criminal activities for investigations. If those

people caught on the video had an avenue to report these criminal

activities they suffer covertly, many of these cases will not happen.

There is need for concerted leadership in this country, where everyone

is concerned and has integrity just like the president himself., with

that we can make some progress and God will Bless our Nation.

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Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD),

parthur14@gmail.com

http://pakar1-corner.blogspot.com/