FROM PROFESSOR TO PICKETER: The Lost Generation and the Missing Money

Ghana is neither worth living for nor dying for. That’s how many feel at the moment. Honestly. Think about this: I’ve known Uncle Kweku since his graduate student days on the University of Ghana campus. I was only a lad then. He would later complete his graduate studies, an MPhil in linguistics, and top it up with a PhD from Oregon, USA.

After an illustrious career as an academic (see his brief bio here on the University of Ghana website) he not only retired as a full professor but even served as Pro Vice-Chancellor of Ghana’s premier university. What do we find the illustrious son of Ghana doing these days? Picketing on the premises of Ghana’s Ministry of Finance to demand that the government exempts his and fellow pensioners’ bonds from being sequestered in the dubious Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme. I know for a fact that virtually all of Prof. Kweku Osam’s pension monies are in these bonds. Ei! A former Chief Justice also picketing alongside the other day is reported to have said, “I am over 70 years now. I am no longer government employed, my mouth has been unguarded, and I am talking, and I am saying that we have failed.”

 

“BACK TO THE FUTURE”

When Uncle Kweku overtly verbalized to the media in an interview on one of the picketing days that he would dissuade his children from ever investing in the Government of Ghana’s financial instruments because “they are risky,” he seemed to have read my mind. Seriously. For while I agree that it is despicable to draw the aged into this DDE debacle and punish pensioners who have planned well for their future and lent their own monies to government to work with, I have an even greater concern for the young people of the country who might take decades to recover from this rude shock. It has taken years to grow a savings and investment culture in Ghana.

As previously started in an earlier article on this matter, “I am pained that, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’ (Ezekiel 18:2). For over 20 years now, The HuD Group and I have championed a culture of savings and investments in Ghana, and had the JOY of seeing thousands heeding the call, especially young people.” I recently met one of the young men I used to travel the country with to inspire and teach young people to form investment clubs and start investing. He’s currently the managing director of a major investment company in Ghana. He intimated how this whole DDE disaster made him shed several kilograms over a month, being at the receiving end of verbal and other forms of abuse from frustrated and fearful investors. At the time we spoke, people were withdrawing an average of 100 million Ghana Cedis each day from his outfit. He had already dispatched 2.5 billion Ghana Cedis when we held our conversation.

 

A zoom in on Prof. Kweku Osam, picketing at the Ministry of Finance, with his fellow pension bondholders

 

BACK TO THE PENSIONERS

So what exactly are we working for? The calibre of pensioners-turned-picketers is disheartening: doctors, engineers, civil servants… If retired professors and chief justices are protesting, what about the no-namers and the many who are too old or too ill to hit the streets? I am privy to a WhatsApp message Prof. Kweku Osam sent that was meant to be just informational, but ended up being very transformational for me:

The last time I took part in a public demonstration against a government of Ghana was in May 1983, as a fresh graduate student. That was when students in the country rose up against Rawlings and his PNDC. Today, God willing, I’ll join fellow Pensioner Bondholders to protest at the Ministry of Finance. The government should leave Pensioner Bondholders alone. Touch not the Pensioner Bondholders.

Think about it: Uncle Kweku began his working life protesting the government. Forty years later, he is ending his working life with yet another anti-government protest. Virtually all his lifesavings is now being held at ransom by a government that has misled and mismanaged her affairs, Covid-19 and Russia-Ukraine notwithstanding. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness between the 1983 protest and the present one on the eve of our sixty-sixth independence commemoration, Ghana itself is a pensioner by age, without much to show for it. We’ve got to do better for our people, old and young alike. Seriously.

Prof. Osam’s generation–my parents’ generation–is the same one the current Finance Minister, Uncle Ken, belongs to. It is the same crop of people who plotted military coup d’etats a generation ago in their youth. Now they won’t exit quietly either, not without a financial coup de grace. With trepidation, dare I call them the lost generation? And they did not only lose themselves and their way, they lost money–theirs and ours.

But to what will my generation and those following rise, having clearly observed that Ghana is not worth living for and Ghana is not worth dying for? That’s how many feel at the moment. Honestly. Think about it.

 

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4 Comments

  1. Kojo Pieterson says:
    February 13, 2023

    Interesting read and is a very disheartening situation.Is unfortunate those of us with investment culture are in serious trouble.My entire investment for 16 years is in serious jeopardy as getting access to my money is practically impossible.The outfit I invested with claim they have run out of liquidity when it got to my turn to pay me my money.I am not taking it lightly at all, but for now very calm.Yet to take my next line of action following an official complaint to BOG.

    Reply
    • Yaw Perbi says:
      February 16, 2023

      Ei Kojo!
      I feel your pain.
      You and I have been at this for the last 20 years. For is not unjust–may He come through for you and me and us–Ghana.

      Reply
  2. Concerned young Ghanaian investor says:
    February 16, 2023

    I read your book, “Financial Whizzdom” as a young 18-year old. My father bought the book for me when I told him, when I grow up I do not want to be poor.

    Your words in your book really inspired me to learn more about investments. Based on your recommendation, I even went ahead to read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. I also attended one of your investment seminars and inspirational talks at Queens Hall, KNUST more than a few years ago. I feel very grateful for your life and your inspiration even though we never actually met.

    It feels very sad that the investment culture you helped to painstakingly build in Ghana, instilling into someone like me, could be this shaken this way by our elders, who I so badly want to respect, and who are not behaving in a way that makes it possible for me to do so.

    I stand with our esteemed pensioners and earnestly pray that the current government of Ghana will honour its bond, its promise to Ghanaian investors and to find more creative, sustainable, hardworking and valuable ways of solving the current debt crisis they got us into than the approach they are currently using. With more power comes more responsibility, and I urge our very wealthy political leaders to show more respect to those who did not necessarily choose the path of wealth, just the path of honest and dedicated service to Ghana.

    Reply
    • Yaw Perbi says:
      February 16, 2023

      Thanks for your bold and clear articulation on this matter. Your last sentence not only deserves a standing ovation, I will be sure to AMPLIFY that through my humble channels. “God bless our homeland Ghana, and make our nation great and strong.” Keep hope alive!

      Reply

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