With a few minutes to land as the plane descends to Takoradi Airport, despite the harmattan fog, I can clearly see the milky/brown colored Pra River flowing out of mercury, cyanide, etc. deposits, what is the water, so. Atlantic. I could see the Pre mudflows pushing the blue waters of the ocean kilometers into the Atlantic.
I have read and seen on TV, Ankobra is no better. Traveling to Akwatia, I couldn’t believe what I saw from Birim River. As a young officer training at the Jungle Warfare School in the 1970s, I remember the clear and clean Birim River we could easily gulp to quench our thirst.
Away from the river, my one week stay in Takoradi from January 8, 2023 was a dream come true. I am a “walking wounded” human, military terminology for victims of war, who are not stretcher-cases, and therefore walk or are helped to walk, to the nearest medical station. Why “walking wounds?”
After being forced by the TUC to reverse its previous decision to include corporate bonds in the domestic debt restructuring, the government turned to individual bondholders like “The Manager” and me.
Government Bonds
In my sixth grade economics major at university, I learned that government securities like bonds and treasury bills are the safest investments you can make. However, because they are risk free, the rate of return is lower! I was taught that, in retirement, the best investment is government securities. In Ghana, we saw how very high yielding securities like Pyram in the 1990s bankrupted many Ghanaians who had invested.
So, when I retired and was paid a gratuity for over forty years of service to God and country, which is less than what the MP made in ex-gratia after only four years in the current Parliament, I safely signed into the treasury bill. In 2022, I was advised to choose government bonds because they pay higher. Despite my hunches and reluctance, I finally gave in to the persistence of my Relationship Manager, who meant well.
So, while the end of 2022 sees contradictory signals about what could happen to the Ghanaian cedi, the statement “there will be no haircut” rings true. Then, on January 11, 2023, I got this sms from Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), a banker,
“Dear Daniel and Evelyn, in accordance with the directive of the Ministry of Finance on the Domestic Debt Exchange Program, we would like to inform you about the addition of eligible individuals!”
Later, as Shakespeare said, the dagger is twisted in our wound because it is said that the principal of our investment will be paid in 2035 after the current driblets. In effect, we have gone from “no-hair” to probably complete “head-cut”. For retirees who do not die of hypertension and other diseases, how will they survive until 2035?
The Economist
In Takoradi, when I saw an old economist on TV analyzing the current situation as one of “arrogance, incompetence and recklessness,” my mind ran back to the question a frustrated journalist asked recently;
“What is wrong with us Ghanaians?”
When C18th Political Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke conceived of the idea of government, they envisioned it as the majority giving rights to a government that would provide security and social services for all. That way, life will not be “brutal, poor, bad, rough and short” as it would be in the jungle law of survival of the fittest! They expect government to be conducted with humanity, respect and honesty!
The insurer
Perhaps, the anger, pain and disappointment in the hearts of individual bondholders is what is expressed in a viral video clip attributed to a 65-year-old retired financial and insurance analyst. Like him, many are working hard in Ghana/elsewhere for a comfortable retirement. But in a rather cavalier, unprofessional and careless way, our managers have made the mistake of managing it rudely and arrogantly like an insurance company, some pensioners see suicide as an option! On TV, a man over 70 years old who worked in the US for about thirty years said that he invested all his money in bonds when he comes home in 2022. He just said on TV “I’m going to die!”
The insurers said they had the option of sending their investments out of Ghana to offshore havens, but decided to invest patriotically in Ghana. He also advises his clients to follow in his footsteps. With the backstabbing by our managers, what are they doing?
He asked, how can a leader push Ghanaians into the abyss in this way and appear indifferent?
Summary
The old economist said that, if the current trajectory of reckless debt is not to invest, but to spend frivolously in the size of the government among others, when putting a tax on the basics like sanitary pads does not change, Ghana would have been “put in a time-bomb. thirty to forty years later.” For many Ghanaians who have worked hard all their lives, the current domestic debt swap program for individual bondholders is a death sentence.
The 65-year-old insurer said he had been driven to suicidal thoughts like 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouaziziz did in 2011, and the aftermath. From “no haircut” to “full head cut” is just inhumane!
What other lessons do you teach the younger generation about investing in Ghana?
Finally, for all the rhetoric against “galamsey,” a prominent lawyer described the situation as “NATO” (No Action, Just Talk). When I flew to Takoradi, seeing the brown Pra River push the blue sea as it entered the Atlantic was tragic, I gasped!
By the way, is it true that as I saw on social media, Nigeria’s priority to build a new refinery, the biggest in Africa, will be realized on January 24, 2023 with a commission from the President of Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery? What are Ghana’s priorities?
Leadership, leadership!
Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (RTD)
Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association
Nairobi, Kenya
Chairman of the Board
University of Family Health
Accra
[email protected]
Source: Brig-Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd), Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya
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