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The President’s Speech on the State of the Nation (SONA) was concise, scholarly, direct, and straightforward. He touched practically everything, from where Ghana was, at the time he was sworn in as president, and what the situation is in his opinion, now.
I think, in general, there has been a certain honesty in telling us what has been done and in presenting us with the state of the nation. However, I have some comments and criticisms.
It cannot be entirely accurate that there is an abundance of food in Ghana. There are serious problems with poultry and the price of staple foods has not dropped. A simple survey of food prices among ordinary Ghanaian respondents will point this out.
Furthermore, we cannot talk about our economy doing well without at least admitting the huge debt burden of around 297 billion that weighs on the innocent ordinary people of Ghana now and in the future.
In addition, a speech that occurred just after our election and that witnessed some deaths, should have contained some comment on the unnecessary loss of life, commiseration with the family of the deceased, as well as some vote and commitment to resolve violations of the law, with a view to preventing the repetition of such unjustified deaths in future elections.
We don’t need a national conversation on illegal mining. It appears that the president sounded hesitant in his commitment to fight Galamsey.
His comments in this regard do not support his earlier decisive stance of wanting to risk his presidency in the fight against illegal mining. The disastrous effects of illegal mining on our bodies of water and on the very sources of human livelihoods in Ghana are not quantifiable, and the quest to maintain political power should not be enough for any regime to give up its fight.
With respect, I believe that Osei Kyei Mensah could be living in a dreamland if he does not learn the rubrics of sounding conciliatory in his remarks and comments in response to “provocations” from Iddrisu Haruna.
You should know that according to our constitutional arrangement, the deputy of the electoral district of Fomena is not a member of the PNP, although he can choose to vote with them. This, coupled with the unprecedented attitude of Ghanaian voters to ensure that parliament remains what it is likely to be in the coming days, should cause you to approach your overly partisan comment with some trepidation, going forward.
You may want to take a second look at the definition of what a Hung Parliament is. The definition focuses on POLITICAL PARTIES and not on independent candidates.
If upcoming events really do cast their shadows, then respectfully Haruna Iddrisu may also want to moderate and manage her emotions in a way that can help reduce unnecessary intransigence and deadlocks in the upcoming parliament.
Finally, if the latest SONA cannot be formally debated by Parliament, then it is about time we question its relevance after doing it over and over again. If it is simply a matter of providing parliamentarians with information on what has been done, then we can simply send the speech to parliamentarians electronically, rather than wasting resources to convene a session.
We must work to operationalize constitutional imperatives, otherwise rigid application of rules without contextualizing them will continue to introduce thinking human beings into a regime of robots.