Executive Chairman of KGL Group, and Board Chairman of the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC), Mr. Alex Dadey has indicated that for Ghana to do better in safeguarding its growing Constitutional Democracy there is the need for all, including citizens and duty bearers, to patch the political differences.
He averred that Ghana is divided on political lines hence; Ghanaians tend to think about things along party lines.
Speaking in an exclusive interview, Mr. Dadey said the political class holds it responsibility and duty to bring Ghanaians together irrespective of which party they belong.
According to him, instead of the political class working at pulling everybody together in the spirit of patriotism in nation building, they rather programmed “Our mindsets along political divisions; that also come about because of the winner takes all syndromes.”
He said; “Because of that mentality one party empowers its people to run businesses and another party comes to power, destroy those businesses and brings its own people and empower them. We can’t run a country in that manner.”
Alex Dadey, however blamed the ruling classes for creating such division among the citizenry. This divisions he said, is what is at play currently in Parliament.
According to him, “Parliament is a place for debate not a boxing ring,” and that debates and ideas should supersede all political differences one may have when it comes to parliamentary responsibility where the welfare of the people is a concern.
He said stable democracy is bedrock for national development and that testing that against the 4th Republic, Ghana has chalked some successes although it could do better with Economic democracy.
He explained that Economic democracy is very important to the citizenry because that is what puts money in their pocket, adding that “In the Hierarchy of needs first is to get food to eat.”
He also averred that exercising Democracy through the thumb is not only to change leaders for change sake, but for them to be on their toes in bettering the lives of the people.
“End result of democracy is when people benefit from good governance. We could do better with economic prosperity of our people,” he said.
He also called on Ghanaians to change their mindset and forget about seeing others rather than seeing themselves.
He said “You cannot have a society that is not corrupt having corrupt politicians. We are what we see in our politicians,” hence he charged the people of Ghana to stop the corruption from within so that in choosing leader, who are always chosen from within the people, we can chose the right people to lead.
Mr. Alex Dadey who also commented on the growing tension in Parliament as regards the fight over the E-levy Bill, said that has hampered investor confidence in Ghana’s ability to control or to bring in policies, and control expenditures. The Money markets are different from what we see; they are expecting that Government raise revenue to service its expenditure. “So yes, it hampers our ability to meet all these, the danger is that our inability to raise funds, hence we need to borrow… the confidence in parliament is very low.”
He indicated further that foreign investors and market participants are on edge following the stalemate in Parliament and the market seems to now be valuing into bonds.
The markets, he said is concerned that this might impact Government’s ability to successfully pass and implement some of its major revenue policy measures as presented in the 2022 Budget.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dadey maintained that Parliament must continue to show leadership to build a sustainable, entrepreneurial nation while ensuring that growth, job creation and fiscal consolidation are not compromised.
He advised that Parliamentarians need the unflinching support of the ordinary citizens by serving the people in truth.
“The needs of the people including; employment, access to healthcare, education, etc should be addressed. All attempts must be made to secure the trust of the people in the political class. This can be achieved by bridging the gap between the political class and the ordinary people.”
