GHANA COMMENTARIES, by Anna Esi Hanson

Has anyone recently taken a critical look at the vehicles posing as school buses by our private institutions notably the primary and junior high schools? If you have not, kindly do so as a matter of urgency! Because by all standards, most of these buses can double as hearses! They are not fit to convey children to school! They can only be described as hearses! In fact, not all even qualify as hearses! Ironically, this country boasts of brand-new vehicles operating as hearses, whiles the actually dead vehicles are being used to transport healthy and hearty people! Only in Ghana! I have on several mornings encountered these hideous vehicles on my way to work, with innocent victims, children, as passengers! Sometimes, the sitting arrangement of these children in such buses leaves a huge question mark on the issue of supervision. Each time I keep wondering how and why these vehicles are being allowed on our roads, especially in the transportation of children. Each time, I wonder ho...

Is Ghana a socialist or perhaps a capitalist nation? I need to know because at the moment, the happenings in this nation, has left me confused! It is the ‘Monkey dey work, Baboon dey chop’ syndrome! It is the uneven distribution of national wealth and resources! It is the reign of unequal opportunities! From all indications, this country belongs to specific people, rather than all! The communal spirit has long been lost! Ghanaian workers are generally dissatisfied! This is simply because workers, especially in the government institutions, have to fight daily for their entitlement! Several meetings have been held by stakeholders over the years in relation to the demands of workers in the sector, but till date, nothing conclusive has been done! It is the same palaver each year! One strike action after another! It has become a yearly affair particularly among teachers and health workers! The strikes would persist because from all indications, some people are enjoying, whil...

The National Health Insurance Scheme is failing!! The rationale behind the scheme has been trivialized! It is an open secret that the scheme has been abused! Drugs meant for patients, are being hoarded! This is a trend in most public hospitals in this country! Yes, such are the crimes being committed at our hospital pharmacies! Patients are usually referred to other pharmacies to purchase their own drugs since the prescriptions, we are told, are unavailable! Unknown to us, the records later indicate that those drugs have been administered to us for the National Health Insurance Scheme to be charged, whiles the wicked perpetrators later sell those drugs to the cash and carry patients or drug distributors! And the cycle begins! People are dying, as a result of this practice because we are always told that drugs are unavailable, especially when costly! This is not a cooked up story! It is the story of a recent encounter! What is the government doing about such operations? Wha...