Syndrome of over-dependency by government, threat to national progress

Accra, March 6, GNA- Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah, Member of Parliament for
Sunyani East, on Monday said the syndrome of exaggerated expectations
and over-dependency on government for development by the citizenry was
a great threat to the building of a resilient nation.
He said a bright future existed for development in the country
for the next 50 years, but cautioned against passive citizenship that
expected only government to fulfil the people's aspirations.
He was delivering a lecture on the theme, " Ghana Past, Present
and Future: Some Reflections on Turning Points, Opportunities and
Lessons for Building a Nation", dedicated to Ghana's 50th independence
anniversary, at the University of Ghana, Legon.
Mr Mensah said Ghana would need empowered citizens to move the
nation forward and urged the media to play a vital role in creating
the right ethos to enable citizens take their own initiatives to
improve their lives.
He however, said the nation would first have to thoroughly purge
itself and reform the people's mindset, "which produces a ceaseless
whine about what the State must do for the people, but so little about
what people must do for themselves.
Mr Mensah said "Perhaps as a nation we should adopt as our slogan
President Kennedy's famous slogan "ask not what Ghana can do for me,
but what I can do for the nation and for myself."
He said the Ghanaian middle class " mostly disables itself by
constantly feeding on this poisonous diet dependency of inertia and
inaction."
Mr Mensah who is also an Economic Development Consultant said
the events of March 1957, which Ghanaians were celebrating were
signified by the resumption of sovereign power by the people of Ghana
in place of the British crown and its colonial administration.
" The exercise of sovereignty did not come to us for the first
time in 1957: we only retrieved a position of almost indefinite
antiquity long ago in out various traditional states, the people of
this country have exercised such sovereignty as a matter of natural,
living reality."
Mr Mensah appealed Ghanaians to make a more objective,
overarching constituency of political judgement and analysis.
He condemned coups makers, saying, " A coup is essentially an
overthrow of existing order... It is a matter of record that repeated
regime change and capricious appointments have cost the Ghana public
service most dearly."
Mr Mensah said because Parliament had not been able to will the
desired end for the nation because it lacked the will for the means
for the implementation of any policy.
He called for a constitutional amendment that would give
Parliament a role in financial management, which was more akin
parliamentary practice of the American Congress.
Mr Mensah cited for instance that the nation was not spending
much money on planning, research and development, on a scale anywhere
commensurate with its ambition to become a middle income nation.
He called on schools not to downplay the study of the nation's
history and said it had been observed that countries which had been
outstanding in nation building taught their children about their past
and culture.
06 March 07