6th March, 2017 will mark 60 years after Ghana (then Gold Coast) attained independence from Britain in 1957. And even before a public discourse begins on the necessity of a national celebration to mark 60 years of independence, a Ghana at 60 Planning Committee was last week inaugurated.
INAUGURATING the 30-member planning committee, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo charged members to organise a modest celebration. The president’s charge to the planning committee to organise an unpretentious celebration was premised on the ground that financially the country is not sound.
THIS is what President Akufo-Addo said while inaugurating the Ghana @ 60 Planning Committee on Thursday, January 26, 2017: “I think all of us are in agreement that the financial and economic circumstances of our country are not where we would like it to be. We have to recognise the reality of it; we do not have the money that we need to have and, therefore, the celebration of this millstone should be modest. It should take into account our strait and financial circumstance, but it should also be elegant and appropriate.”
IT is good the president sees the need for us not to overly spend on the country’s 60th anniversary. The last time Ghana celebrated an anniversary like that was in 2007 during the reign of former President John Agyekum Kufuor. The country was fifty (50) years then.
UNFORTUNATELY, after that beautiful 50th anniversary celebration, the issues that arose raised a lot of questions necessitating the argument that the celebration was a wasteful expense on the nation’s resources. The challenging aspect of the overspending was the fact that apart from the budget provision, the nation received millions of corporate and individual voluntary contributions to support the national budget for the celebration.
WE recall that the Chief Executive Officer of then Ghana @ 50 Secretariat, Dr. Yves Wereko-Brobby, was even accused of misappropriating funds and in some cases, spending unnecessarily. Though a commission of enquiry was set up by the late President John Evans Atta Mill’s administration, nothing much came out of the enquiry and Ghana was saddled with a budget deficit from the celebration.
TODAY, we again have a New Patriotic Party (NPP) government in the helm of affairs as the country comes to celebrate another milestone. Though it is not bad for us to celebrate some of these milestones, Today is of the opinion that there should be a paradigm shift in the way we spend huge sums of money we do not have, merely to mark an anniversary.
INSTEAD, we wish to propose that such occasions are used to particularly honour our living past heroes and heroines. It should also be an occasion where we take a retrospective look into what we have done over the years and put in place strategies that would propel the development of this country.
THAT way such anniversaries would be rid of the associated scandals and perceptions linked to squandered monies by individuals put in charge to organise the celebrations. The entire nation would rather benefit directly if such funds are committed to building infrastructure in communities.
ON this score, we charge the Akufo-Addo led-government to watch carefully as to how we spend on the 60th anniversary celebrations. Ghanaians would not be happy with a repetition of what happened at Ghana @ 50.
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