Reality check hits government; no free water, electricity and no increment in public sector salaries till 2024

 

Well, you can always trust politicians for always going against their own words. One social commentator wrote somewhere that when a politician tells you to look up you must rather look down. It's not been long since because of Covid-19, government promised us that we are not going to pay electricity and water bills for the next three months and after that was extended to another three months. This has accumulated a total debt for the country of Ghs19 billion. Personally I didn't enjoy this free utility bill as I was using a prepaid meter and had to buy credit any time my electricity gets finished. I think those who enjoyed it will be those who used the post paid meter and not the prepaid ones. Because with the post paid you have to consume the electricity first before a bill is submitted to you but with prepaid if you don't buy the electricity credit, there is no way you will get electricity in the first place.

Well even though this period some of us paid our bills, we were happy because at least others who used post paid were not made to pay for their electricity and water bill, a huge relief to residents and businesses as it goes a long way to reduce living cost and production cost. I am thinking the meaning of the English word free means being given something for which you don't pay or work for. Something free is like being given a bonus as a worker at the end of the year or month different from your salary. Free is when you buy something from a shop and the shop owner tells you don't pay for it. Free is when you buy a gift for your child in school because he did well in his exams. Free is when you buy your wife a gift because you are pleased with her. Free is when you feed orphans and widows without collecting them money. Free is when you give money to a beggar on the street without demanding any favour.

Why then must government come and tell us that now the free water and electricity they gave us, they are now going to tax on value added a levy of 1% to cater for the Covid-19 free water and electricity? If this is not a trick and deception by government then I don't know what it is? Certainly they played a political game with it because they knew 2020 was just around the corner for elections so they made us believe it was free. Immediately they won power and the election petition hearing was in their favour, they now announce a Covid-19 1% tax on value added products and services and have furthermore become defiant to state that they are not going to increase public sector salaries till 2024.

In November 2020, I was in a certain public office when a public servant was bitterly complaining that the government is playing games with them because their salaries had just been increased by 25% just a month before election and that after the election they are going to put measures in place to retract that benefit given to them and indeed what the man has said has come to pass with government's embargo to allow any salary increment on public sector salaries till 2024. It's not mandatory but every year even in private companies, salaries are increased and extra bonuses are also paid to workers for good performance appraisal. Why then will government want to deny civil servants that privilege?

They have said when they deduct the mandatory deductions like GETfund, District Assembly Common Fund, Health Insurance there will not be enough to even pay the salaries of public servants thus the embargo on the increment till 2024. Can you retract your vote for the government now after they have won power? A very big No. This is what various political parties keep on doing to the public. You are asking somebody's father and mother to work for four years without any salary increment because you now have power? 

Workers who are working on the Tamale interchange now have gone on strike because of bad conditions of service being meted to them there. In a day they are marked Ghs20 which is not even forthcoming and for the past three months they have been owed including their risk allowances. For the very little I know various masons and labourers are marked Ghs70 and Ghs50 a day respectively. How can labourers be marked Ghs20 a day on the Tamale interchange project? This is wickedness and slavery to say the least. And they will tell you there is no money, if there is no money why do you have to carry out a project by force? It's just to deceive the public for votes.

Anyway, TUC have also come out to say the government cannot go on that line if they have not reached an extensive consultation and agreement with them because it must be a general consensus and not just one sided decision by government to implement such on public workers. Should we also trust the TUC for their PR stunt that they are not on the side of government?

Well I leave the rest for readers to judge. No one is against good economic management policy intervention to build the economy after the impact of Covid-19 but what we are against is the lies and manipulation of the public minds in the interest of government. Tell the people the truth about your interventions but don't tell them something is free and then you later squeeze their hands to pay for the freebie. 

Therefore the bigger blame will fall at the doorstep of those who cast their vote based on freebies and not sound economic policies because the politician doesn't give anything for free. What a politician tells you is free will later make you pay for it in ways you can't even imagine if we are even lucky we are not made to suffer corruption for it at our blind side. So those who without understanding who cast their vote just because they heard the word free, it is your children that will blame you one day because of the debts you are accumulating for them to come and pay.

My question now is very simple, now what is free in Ghana? Is it the free SHS or one district one factory or one village one dam? As it stands now, nothing is free in Ghana. Everything will be paid for by Ghanaians eventually so please next time tell the politician to remove the tag free on anything he promises to do for you and cast your vote based on sound economic policies.