I have heard many people say they have no talent, and I always tell them they do. I genuinely believe everyone can do something unique. Most often, the issue is that we don’t spend enough time on ourselves to discover and nurture these abilities.
We live in a rigid society where a single slip could render you to the unrelenting jaws of poverty for the rest of your life. There are no buffers, and the safety nets need mending.
Elsewhere (though greed, neglect, and complacency seem to be eroding this fact), people are encouraged to travel, explore, and pick up hoddies that will broaden their worldview to ensure whole development. This helps people to function beyond their periphery, enabling them to discover talents and become problem solvers.
The structure here is that you go to school, memorize to pass the exams, get a job (if lucky), get married and make a family, retire (if lucky), die, and go to heaven.
Most of us are not ambitious. Even the exceptions have self-interest-seeking ambitions. This can largely be attributed to poverty, the condition under which most of us were brought up, and the fear of returning to those conditions.
Just as the political class is blinded by greed, most of our working class is languishing in anxiety and depression. People who lack passion for the work they do, so we make inputs with no impact. We are forced to cling to whatever pays the bills because the alternative is grim.
The bane of Africa is indeed leadership, but we don’t have aliens as leaders. I have always maintained that our leaders reflect who we are as people. Most of us vote for leaders based on our interests, not policies and issues.
A society that can’t nurture critical thinkers can not elect critical-thinking leaders. This is not exclusive to Ghana or Africa, as we have recently seen the kinds of leaders elected in supposedly civilized societies, where long-term neglect caused people to submit to a cult of following. Blame society.
In a previous article, I indicated the unequivocal role of human development in nation-building. Our tunnel vision mindset is indicative of the kind of policies we enact.
When an industry emerges and begins to evolve and grow, the government’s first resort isn’t to go with the taxman to collect. A right-thinking and functioning government should establish mechanisms and institutions to regulate and assist in the growth of such an industry.
This will be the case if you have well-oriented people at the helm of affairs.
When e-commerce emerged and began to flourish because the concept of mobile money made it possible for a majority of Ghanaians to have access to electronic money, what they (the government) should have done was to get involved, task existing agencies, and establish new ones if need be, to regulate transactions and help merchants to structure their payment processes.
Business registration in this country is too cumbersome and plagued with needless bureaucracy. It should be a government priority to ensure that all commercial entities in the country are registered, not just to extort money in the name of taxes but also to help them (the businesses) streamline their operations, thus making it a mutually beneficial engagement.
With this, the government, through its agencies in collaboration with the telecom companies and other service providers in the electronic payment industry, can identify commercial transactions on the mobile money platform and properly tax those accordingly.
Patriotism is not a right of a nation. Patriotism is a luxury that a serving nation enjoys. Often, the government is quick to note that Ghanaians don’t pay taxes, even though our tax structure compels every Ghanaian to pay taxes directly or indirectly in our everyday lives. We are apprehensive about the idea because we don’t feel the impact of the money we give.
In the case of the levy, the government should have encouraged businesses to register by providing infrastructure and easy access to credit for registered entities. Develop QR and USDD systems for POS services and gradually make most payments electronic, making it easier to collect your VAT.
It is a primitive, retrogressive, and lazy approach to slap a blanket levy on transactions. It is an insensitive and effective tool to wipe out gains made in the industry.
People have cited several reasons why the government is imposing this levy on electronic transactions. I hear, but I believe the rationale is brain drain. Any other explanation is semantics.
Most leaders on this continent do not demonstrate the ability to think critically and devise appropriate remedies. They show up with long résumés but seem to lack the critical component – the ability to think. Otherwise, we won’t be here.
They often act like a lazy lady who likes fine things, so they will sacrifice any honor and dignity to attain those fine things. But unfortunately, in their case (our leaders), it’s not just their dignity but the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. But again, we elect them in most cases.
Taxes are essential to the development of any society, and all those who have progressed or want to progress need them to provide critical social services that support human living and development. But most often, in our case, they collect and chop it, then come back cap in hand wanting more.
The mobile money concept provides a golden opportunity to structure finance and commerce in this country. Use it to formalize all internal trades and transactions and help every citizen to have a proper credit/finance regime. Then we can begin getting rid of the third-world nonsense we call the “Informal Sector.” But like we have done to all our geese, we slaughter them for a meal.
As people, we must first identify where we want to be, determine what we need to get there, and begin a conscious effort to address our needs to improve our chances. We can blame society, but we must remember that we form society.
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Why would a leader of this nation lack the will to stop what clearly has become an existential threat? Well, the simple answer is greed. They can construct impeccable English and cite several excuses as the hindrance, but the real Teflon is greed.
Our world has come a long way, and we, the people, must learn to change our thinking so we can realize our full potential as a race by coming together and working to fight common hindrances like poverty and disease.
The quality of a nation’s output is greatly determined by the quality of its education.
It must not be lost on anyone that the fight for Africa’s sovereignty won’t be a pretty one. We won’t achieve anything with speeches in front of marble walls in a hall filled with careless people.
The car you drive in Formula One makes a great difference, even though this fact usually has different interpretations depending on the subject.