Nine Million Ghanaians Living On 5 Ghana Cedis A Day Is An Indictment Of The Political System

On Tuesday, a local NGO shocked the country with the revelation that nine million Ghanaians live on 5 Ghana cedis a day. Unfortunate, upsetting and depressing.

This is presumably in urban areas, according to the NGO. In the rural parts of the country, life for rural dwellers is much more harsh, brutish and difficult. Ghanaians who reside here are said to subsist on less than a dollar a day.

The news is not only deeply saddening, it also brings into the open the high levels of poverty in the country, a painful but absolutely incontrovertible solid fact that politicians have been trying so hard to paper over.

In addition, the sad revelation is a powerful indictment of our politicians who are charged with the responsibility of improving the financial and economy lot of their country men and women.

Ghanaian politicians’ failure is one for the record books; it is one of monumental dimensions; and it is morally wrong and deceptive on the part of our politicians to continue to shout from the rooftops that Ghana is a middle income country. News flash!!It is not. Poverty, truth be told, is pervasive and deeply rooted in our society.

I am wondering how politicians from the two major parties reacted to the heart-wrenching story that 9 million Ghanaians are in the tight grip of adverse and unrelenting poverty; perhaps, nonchalant as usual, like the way they reacted after the two deadly accidents last week.

None of them has come out to comment on the horrific statistic, not even the president has had the common decency to make a remark about a segment of our population that eats one meal a day and for most part cannot make ends meet.

It is a crying shame that our politicians will allow 9 million Ghanaians to wallow in desperate poverty. It is telling. How could our politicians watch unmoved as a segment of our population grinds it out, surrounded by harsh financial and economic conditions?

For years, politicians from both sides of the aisle have pushed the false narrative that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Subsequently they made outlandish and grandiose promises to bring good things in terms of jobs and financial security to millions of Ghanaians. But the much hyped and vigorously promised milk and honey paradise has not materialized.

Instead, our politicians have presided over an economy that continues to be stagnant, weak and unable in large measure to produce jobs for Ghanaians willing and able to work .

Nine million Ghanaians mired in poverty must be the jolt that should wake our politicians from their Rip Van Winkle like induced slumber and get to work to fix the economy. They just can’t continue to live the good life while their constituents languish in abject misery.