Yesterday signs of an imminent countrywide fuel shortage manifested clearly. The long queues and overwhelming “no fuel” signs greeting fuel-seeking motorists said it all about another face of Ghana’s travails.
With no sign of a possible settlement of government’s indebtedness to companies responsible for the importation of finished petroleum products, we appear to be heading for a shut-down of the economy.
We are faced with an indebtedness that can collapse a financial institution we are told: when such banks which have advanced so much to those concerned to import finished petroleum products whine and turn their backs on further demands, they must be understood.
The prevailing challenge is another excuse for government to bemoan how it is no longer feasible to apply subsidies on fuel. It is as if we had not been told earlier that subsidies had been stopped by the government. What a way to prepare the minds of Ghanaians for another price hike!
Governance is about prioritising expenditures and programmes alongside taking the appropriate decisions on behalf of the people. This way unnecessary expenditure – many of which satisfy individual politicians – can be stopped for the necessary subsidies to be applied on such necessities as fuel and so on. This way all levels of Ghanaians benefit from a national asset or even resource.
In the face of government’s inability to meet its obligations to private concerns who import petroleum products, the tired and vexed subsidy issue dangled before us once more can only incense us and expose further the insincerity of those at the helm.
The bottom-line of the approaching fuel shortage in the country is that something is wrong somewhere in the governance of this country. We are not being told the truth because persons leading us are suffering the effects of lying to the people.
More lies are needed to sustain the lies presented to us in previous times, especially during campaigns ahead of elections. So drastic reduction of petroleum products is not a feasible venture?
The truth has for a long time been an endangered virtue in governance, the fallouts of which are dawning upon us in several biting modes.
The state of denial in which government was for a long time, has given way to forceful admission of the reality, with lies no longer able to provide the thrust for uncanny propaganda.
Things are falling apart and we are unable to conjecture what awaits the country tomorrow. Statutory payments continue to be out of the reach of beneficiary state departments; students on scholarships abroad are suffering the effect of non-payment of money to their various institutions; the Judiciary is starved of funds to operate effectively. Ask yourselves why.
Prices continue to rise in the face of falling value of the local currency, in spite of various trial-and-error measures by the apex bank. Ask yourselves why. Traders shut shops to protest the unbearable state of doing business in the country. Ask yourselves why.
Bad governance doubtlessly is the cause of all the foregone. Have we not had enough of the mess?