Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum, Senyo Hosi, has called on Ghanaians to be more patriotic and selfless towards national issues.
Speaking in relation to the government’s domestic debt exchange programme and the consequent pushback it suffered from primarily middle-class individuals in the country, he noted that the unionizing of the middle class against the government’s tyranny was largely triggered by parochial interests.
He explained that had most individuals not been directly affected by the debt treatment, the government would not have suffered the level of pushback it did.
According to him, Ghana would not have been at this juncture if the middle class had shown this level of interest in the country’s economic management right from the beginning following a series of warnings from academics and civil society leaders.
“I think we have a selfishness problem, a bit of it is allowed but I think we don’t have a strong sense of country as we pretend to have. When we have to step out, the next thing everybody is asking is ‘what will happen to my business in case these people come for me? I’m not the one who will solve Ghana’s problems’. But when we carry on this way, what kind of life are we leaving for the generations.
“Look at the act of government in this thing, there is a strong case for it to rather show leadership and sacrifice its own comfort by taking fiscal adjustments; we didn’t see our politicians do that. Then our fathers, when this crisis came, they who actually have a lot more access to the network, a lot more access to experience, who could have brought it to help deal with this national catastrophe, we also saw them rather say that they were in to just take care of their own self, ‘we’re pensioners, we’re the only people you should take care of as this point since you’re doing this’ and that was what happened.
“Who is really thinking about the generation after? Our parents forgot about us, they forgot about their children, and they were thinking about themselves. Our government forgot about the people who put them there and were just thinking about their own personal comfort. It is the same thing that happens every time,” he bemoaned on JoyNews’ PM Express.
He stressed that how well or poorly the country is managed affects everybody as evidenced by the debt treatment that it behoves on all and sundry to imbibe the spirit of activism and selflessness and hold the government accountable, despite the repercussions of doing so.
“Ghana hits all of us every day, that’s all we all forget. When you buy hacks and there’s a tax in there, you’re investing in making this country better for the children that come after you. So if you don’t get interested in the space of policy, you don’t get interested in how governance is run and you’re just thinking about the fact that you can buy your own fuel and not think about the hunger of the person next door, what country are you going to live in?
“What country will our children grow in? We easily forget these things, we easily do. My mum can call me and be worried; my family members call me and be worried, true they have a case. But if we all keep acting this way where will we go? I’m very clear that when this DDE is done my business interest will suffer, I’m clear. But it is the risk that I have to sign off with my wife,” he said.
