[afro-nets] Ghana gets a half billion - will this improve MDGs? (4)

["John E. WILLIAMS" <JWILLIAMS@navrongo.mimcom.net>]

Ghana gets a half billion - will this improve MDGs? (4)
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Santuah Niagia's article makes interesting reading as it appears to trace the history of northern Ghana from the slave trade era to the present. The problems of poverty in developing countries are multifaceted and any attempt to be selective in one's analysis suggests some intellectual dishonesty. Surely everyone has their world views and are entitled to them but we have to be very critical in our analyses if we are to make a headway as a nation. Let us face it: our colonial masters were not interested in developing any part of our countries that they colonized. They were just interested in our cocoa, timber and gold, period. Anything they needed to do to get these things was what they did-call it development. That explains the roads and railways etc in the south, where these commodities abound. The question is what have we done in the fifty years of our nationhood? Let us remember the history of our political instability and the effect it has had on our economic development. What this means is that our choices are very limited. Poverty is definitely more prevalent in northern Ghana but I can assure Santuah that some of his neighbors on the outskirts of Accra are poorer that those in the north. Go outside the capital towns in the regions and you will get a better picture of what I'm saying. And whiles you are referring to under five mortality in northern and Upper West why don't you explain the Upper East figures, which are the second lowest in the country? The Upper West has had a perennial health manpower problem and yet many doctors and other highly skilled personnel have had free education from primary school right up to university and yet refuse to work among their own people. I think it is unfair to label a government as anti-north just because two out of three regions were not listed to benefit under the MCA. Is the MCA some kind of Marshall Plan which will solve all our problems? I do concede that 547 million dollars is a lot but surely there have been other pro-poor programmes and certainly there will be more!

Dr. John Williams
mailto:JWILLIAMS@navrongo.mimcom.net