In the 1970s, Ghana had a Head of State called General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong (I.K. Acheampong). Memory of
I.K. Acheampong is likely fading in the public psyche, largely because of the passage of time, and the amazing
ability of Ghanaians to forget the past.
Anyway, for those Ghanaians who are now in their eighties, seventies, sixties and possibly fifties, I. K. Acheampong
would be fondly remembered for such iconic statements like ‘fa wo to be je Golf’, ‘yentua’, ‘operation feed
yourself’ and ‘anifa anifa ye gyae’, and many more.
With the exception of ‘fa wo to be je Golf’ and ‘yentua’ the above statements had positive portends in the public
psyche. ‘Operation feed yourself’, for instance, was the catchphrase that the Acheampong regime developed in a
valiant effort to make Ghana self-sufficient in food production. And largely, he succeeded.
‘Anifa anifa ye gyae” was developed when Ghana decided to drive on the right, like the Americans do, instead off
on the left, like the British do. Next time you are comfortably driving with your right hand on the gear shift, thank
Kutu Acheampong.
‘Yentua’ and ‘fa wo to be je Golf’, however, did not have such positive connotation. ‘Fa wo to be je Golf’ for
instance, was not an official government slogan. It was developed by fun-loving Ghanaians, who realized, as time
passed, that all of a sudden, all the beautiful young women with heavy backsides, were driving the latest fun-car, the
Golf I. Back in 1974, if you were diving a Golf I, (Golf One), you were seen to have ‘arrived’, and all the beautiful
women with heavy backsides were driving them.
The joke was that the beautiful vehicles were being shared by General I. K. Acheampong and his men in power to
beautiful women they had managed to bed. Surely not a positive image.
‘Yentua’ was another slogan with an image that was just as bad. In 1974 or thereabouts (fifty years ago), the I. K.
Acheampong Government had come to realize that the previous governments (Kwame Nkrumah, Kofi Abrefa Busia
and others) had racked up so much debt, that the only way around it, was to repudiate the debt. One day, in sheer
frustration, Acheampong is reported to have stated at a Cabinet meeting to discuss the debt, the Twi word ‘Yentua!’
to wit, ‘We won’t pay!’
Recently, fifty years after I. K. Acheampong, Ghana has once again done a yentua! The irony seems to have escaped
a lot of people, but the recent Debt Exchange Program done by the government of Ghana, is a repetition of the
yentua! policy of I. K. Acheampong. True, it is a program necessitated by desperation, but why on earth would a
nation borrow so much, that it is forced, by the employ of sheer thuggery, to deny and refute debts it had
consciously and deliberately accumulated? How does that make sense? How does a government force people who
government deceived to advance loans to it at a certain interest rate, be forced to take lower interests, or no interests
at all?
Such a policy is retrogressive, smacks of poor fiscal policy planning and mismanagement, and is a throwback to the
failures of the sixties and seventies. And it is be said without equivocation that it is a sign that Akufo-Addo’s
economic management has taken the nation further back than we were fifty years ago.
Another sign, is the recent alarming announcement that government intended to introduce a law to dictate the prices
of cement.
Again, history will be a guide. During the mid-1970s and ‘80s, Ghana had a regime called ‘Price Control Regime’,
where government set the prices of certain essential goods like milk, sugar and others. The price control regime led
to the ‘chit’ system for importers and a shortage of many items on the market. It also boomeranged by leading to
shortages of goods on the market, thereby escalating the prices of the goods and services.
Decades later, a government of Ghana has so badly managed to nation’s currency, that it is actually forced to
entertain the thought of setting a price, by law and not economic or production factors, for the price of an essential
commodity.
The million Ghana Cedi question is; how did we get here?
(Periscope Depth of 22 nd July, 2024. Periscope Depth is published every Monday in the Daily Searchlight).
