Placing value in and unlocking value from Ghanaian Citizens Part III

Every Ghanaian child is born with some value locked within him or her. We, collectively as the state and as society, are duty bound to realize the intrinsic value in every Ghanaian. We can do this by providing basic quality health infrastructure and care as well as basic quality education for each child. In our peculiar Ghanaian situation, basic school feeding has entered this picture and is a welcome addition. Once we realize the value of each individual in society, our actions, behavior and obligations will automatically reflect that fact.

The attitude and behavior of our bureaucrats, technocrats and politicians reflect the value that society in general and they in particular, place on Ghanaians. Time and again, in the area of education, they have demonstrated the difference in value that they subconsciously place on their progeny and on those of others. One will rarely see the progeny of officialdom attending the educational institutions that they prescribe for the populace in general. The progeny of officialdom attend the well-endowed and often private educational institutions whilst the rest of the public is left to make do with the oft less endowed and resourced state system.

Once a  child is born into our society and onto our soil, we the Ghanaian society, and by extension the state, has a duty to nurture and groom this child until a point where the child matures and value can begin to be unlocked from, or flow from, him or her. One of the first tasks the government has to perform, is that of recording the details relating to the birth of the child. These details should be captured by the health authorities who should have interacted with the pregnant mother and who should be involved with the birth process, or in situations where this is not possible, just after birth. Basically as soon as a child is born, there must be a comprehensive and biometric record of the child. And it must be constantly updated by the Educational and Health authorities as this child progresses through life.

Every  Ghanaian must be within a certain proximity to a health institution, in terms of distance and time. It has never failed to amaze me, how in the United Kingdom, ambulance services are within a certain distance and time of each British citizen. In situations where traffic might pose a problem, paramedics on motorcycles will weave through traffic to administer first aid to the injured until an ambulance makes it way to the scene.

In critical situations, helicopters exist to fly to the injured and whisk them to the hospital. From a Ghanaian perspective, where taxis are accepted as the means of transporting the injured to the hospital, and where ambulances are accepted as being the transport of choice for dead bodies to funerals and the graveyard, it seems like overkill, but from another perspective, this is the value that the British system places on each individual. Basically the British system places enough value on each individual to warrant the sort of expenditure it spends on ambulances, motorcycles and helicopters. We in Ghana have a similar duty to place a similar value on our citizenry and start structuring our society towards protecting citizenry with the above mentioned value.

To wrap up this discourse on the intrinsic value within Ghanaian citizens, from the top echelons of power all the way to the bottom, there must be a re-orientation of the collective mindset, laws and procedures of government from the status quo. We must treat every Ghanaian child and citizen as we would treat our own children or family members. It is not a waste of resources but an investment in the future of our country.