Can a health minister fall sick? Like an army captain who leads soldiers to battle, the duty of a minister of health is to put systems and structures in place to ensure citizens stay in a premium state of health. Is that it? So, when a health minister gets sick, can that be interpreted to mean failure? These were some of the questions on the lips and minds of many Ghanaians when the Minister of Health, Hon Kwaku Agyeman Manu was reported sick and admitted at the hospital.
At a time when many were calling for the country’s leaders and politicians to lead the fight against the stigmatization of persons infected with Covid-19, the health minister’s sickness and shyness about his condition raised eyebrows. More ironic was the fact that the minister was reported admitted a hospital he had not long ago stated was not ready for use saying, “You cannot run MRIs and imaging equipment on the national grid that sees the surveillance of going up and down like that. The backup [standby] generator is not there yet…”
Ghana’s notoriety for abandoning projects initiated by previous regimes is legendary. Decayed and decaying silos, frail and falling factories scattered all over the country pay glowing tribute to our wastefulness, insincerity and arrant inanity when it comes to maintaining state property. The University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), a 650-bed capacity, multimillion-dollar teaching and quaternary level hospital built under the John Mahama administration (like many other similar facilities) and abandoned by the current administration has been the subject of debate between two major political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) the last four years. While poor, innocent citizens died, the two parties had been at each other’s throats making claims and counter-claims about the facility.
Which Ghanaian doesn’t eat leftover food at home? Turning an old palm soup into jollof, an old yam into mportomportor and others into something new and delicious is in the Ghanaian DNA, isn’t it? But put the same Ghanaian into public office and present him with the same scenario and his attitude is different! Everything must be brand new – new cars, new office equipment, new friends, new clothes, new everything. Ghanaian politicians hate continuity. Why? Kickbacks! Those who arrange the projects drink the soup from the fufu bowl before the next chef arrives. And once he settles, he sets in motion systems to create, cook (didn’t say loot) and share other meals which he and his guests devour, and the cycle continues…