Gov’t Creating A "Forest Of Statistics" Just To Convince Ghanaians All Is Not That Bad – Baako

The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Kweku Baako, has described government’s press statement issued at a briefing session on Tuesday as a "statistical overkill" and a bloating of facts about the current economic situation. To Kweku Baako, the government seems to have lost touch with the realities on the ground by depicting a better picture about the country. The Ministry of Information and Media Relations, at a press conference held in Accra, pledged government’s commitment to use "its mandate for the betterment of the lives of the people". The Deputy Sector Minister Felix Ofosu Kwakye, who addressed the press conference, urged all to put an end to the talk of "doom, gloom, despondency and hopelessness that some seek so strenuously to foist on this nation." Cataloguing a litany of programs, policies, initiatives and concrete achievements of the current administration in the water, energy, health and education sectors, the deputy minister said, "in order to guarantee the availability of potable water for all Ghanaians, government has devoted significant attention and resources to improving the water supply system of the country. "Urban water coverage is currently estimated at 63% while rural water coverage stands at 64%. Government has pumped in massive investments to increase urban water coverage from the current level to 85% by 2015 while taking rural water coverage to 76% within the same period." "...last year 170,221 school children were supplied with free school uniforms. 10,000 uniforms will be distributed in 2014....an amount of GHC24, 472,840 was paid in capitation grant to cover 5, 741,198 school children representing 30% of pupils in Public Basic Schools for 2012/2013 academic year." But speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", Kweku Baako admonished government not to tickle itself by living under the pretext that "all is well" in the country. He described the press statement as an attempt to “load figures, load projects, load statistics; put them all together. Create a mountain, a forest of statistics; thinking that would then convince people that indeed the situation is not all that bad.” Whiles acknowledging the fact that the current administration has put in place some social intervention projects to mitigate the suffering of Ghanaians, Kweku Baako opined that it would be sheer "dishonesty" on the part of the government to somehow brainwash the citizenry to feed into their perspective of the spate of development in the country. He pointed out that “it is not the number of projects" but rather "the quality of those projects". “There’s no doubt that some development projects are ongoing. But we have the right to question the quality of those projects. We have the right to undertake value for money audit. We have the right to ask questions. I’m not sure doing so should be described as mere attempts by people to sow the seed of despondency. “Doing such a thing clouds your sense of judgement about the situation because you would have made wrong diagnosis of how the people are feeling. And then, it makes you also over-complacent,” he emphasized. Kweku Baako however advised the ruling party to tackle the challenges on the economic front and tone down on its tactics to convince the citizenry, since its inability to deal with the worsening economic conditions in the country despite repeated assurances, has led to Ghanaians losing faith in the government. “…the people are not listening or if they’re listening; they’re not hearing you,” he stated.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana