The General Secretary of the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) says some foreign forces are influencing the decisions of policymakers in Ghana and that explains why the country keeps lurking behind.
Edward Kareweh attributed the flawed decisions successive governments have taken to impede the progress of the country’s development to such foreign influence.
Speaking during the Metro TV Economic Dialogue Series on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Mr. Kareweh blamed the current economic hardship which has triggered calls for President Nana Addo Dankwa Aklufo-Addo’s resignation on leadership and poor policies.
“A leader must be someone who gives inspiration to his people. A leader should not bring despair and despondency to his people. A leader must work to fulfill the agenda of his people. A leader must not work to fulfill his own (sic) agenda.”
“I think that our leaders are not of their own minds. In fact, if you sit and watch them and you know the pedigree that they are and what they do you’d know very well that if it is spiritual you’d say they are spiritually captured,” he opined.
He added, ”But I don’t want to go there because it is very difficult to explain that but in scientific analysis; that is where my specialty is, we look at factors and characters that underpin policy outcomes. When a policy is determined don’t just look at it and think that ‘oh it is like that. You will go back and see who and what caused that policy to come to that point.”
“You can clearly see that our leaders are not of their own minds. They are working for somebody else they are not working for their people. They are working for themselves and somebody somewhere,” he stressed.
According to Mr. Kareweh, “In the economy, you must produce, consume, and in order to consume because we have got a modern economy, you need money to link all these, If you don’t have the money you cannot go to the producer to buy the food for your consumption. Money becomes critical here.”
“We should all remember we are the product of policies,” he said.
Mr. Kareweh went on to urge the government to consider investing in the agricultural sector, arguing Ghana needs to produce to meet its own needs.
“When we produce who do we produce for? We copy blindly. We started saying export-led development. How do you do that? You’ve not finished meeting your domestic and you’re talking about exports. It doesn’t make sense,” he expressed.
“You don’t have food to eat and you’re producing food to sell outside. Does it make sense? That strategy has totally failed. The people produce for themselves and when they’re satisfied they produce for others.”
By: Bernard Ralph Adams | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
