Despite it having emerged that the actual company which did the labour work of branding the metro buses charged Ghc 100 for working on each bus, which somehow became Ghc 1160 for each on the government papers—actress Lydia Forson thinks the President should not bear the blame.
It has become the talk of the country—with many questioning the basic rationale behind the need to splash photos of our leaders on buses at such high costs.
The editor of GhanaCelebrities.Com, Chris-Vincent Agyapong Febiri in a recent piece titled “CHRIS-VINCENT Writes: Rich Communist China Will Not Even Spend Millions Putting Presidents Photos on Buses Yet Poor Ghana is Proudly Doing This” wrote:
“I love Ghana: a nation that struggles at every level to prioritize things—we have children studying under tress and we recently increased utility tariffs by over 50%.
Yet when we have money (either borrowed or obtained from internal activities), we throw national birthday parties or spend a huge sum to splash the photos of our ex-presidents including the current on our buses.
That’s our conception of development—a witty way to tell the world that we are climbing the sharp gradient of development with our priorities well in place.
Ghana is a capitalist democracy but we do not seem to have an idea of what this means. It’s shocking, perhaps repugnant that a country swimming in a pool of increasing debt will spend 3.6 million cedis to re-brand buses—and by re-branding, I mean plastering the faces of our leaders on these buses.
Anyone who has had a stint with communism will clearly understand the origin of such nonsense which does not have a place in a 21st century civilized country.
Even the last known grandson of communism-China with overflow of national income to be loaning almost every country including Ghana some would not spend a dime on such ridiculous enterprise.
We need buses and therefore we cannot fault the government for securing these buses to help tackle our transportation problem. But spending 31,000 cedis on re-branding of each bus is not what Ghanaians should be proud of.
If you’ve had the privilege of travelling around the world, you would definitely have seen buses with countless advertisements on them—these are mostly private or sponsored branding. In fact, I wouldn’t be writing this piece if the government of the day had sold the spaces on the buses to MTN or Tigo for advertisement. And then use the revenue to build schools, hospitals or fix those farm roads in our cities on which these buses will run.
[smartads]
When you evaluate what happens in Ghana, you are compelled to ask yourself; what sort of food do our leaders eat?
What’s the real benefit of spending 3.6 million cedis to paint ex-president Kufuor or current president Mahama’s photo on a national bus when over 20 million of Ghanaians do not have access to basic improved sanitation? When we do not have electricity and clean drinking water? When children have to walk miles just so they can make it to a school under a tree?”
Today, actress-Lydia Forson has taken to her facebook page to share her view on the issue, saying among other things that the president of the land ought to bear the whole blame.
She wrote:
“I really don’t think it’s fair to blame the president for this whole metro bus branding fiasco.
The man has bigger decisions to make , I would hope, than decide what goes on government vehicles.
However , he’s an easy target, why? Because it’s his face on the ballot paper. Not the minister, or government officials.
But we do expect that having voted him into power, he would be able to hire people capable of handling their jobs well, as they are a reflection on him.
This incident is a clear indication that, a lot of times, people amongst us are part of what’s really wrong with this country.
They are our friends, fathers, mothers colleagues, people with no government position yet have the connections and power to make decisions that directly affect us all.
They will sit with us and complain about the system and how bad things are, yet are part of the problem and not the solution.
They get away with it, why? Because they don’t need our votes, they don’t work for us the people, they don’t have to be accountable to the nation and so on.
Nope, they’re just individuals who happen to be lucky enough to work the system to their favour.
We are the problem with what’s wrong with this country. Unless we change our general attitude, no president can come and save this country.
We need to hold civil servants, government officials , contractors etc more accountable. They are the ones who remain long after presidents have gone.
The sad thing about all of this is, when given the same opportunity , most of you will do the same or worse.
I don’t want to throw accusations at anyone, especially since I don’t know all the facts.
But should it be true that a fellow creative, or so they claim, was behind this and actually cheated other creatives, it would be extremely heartbreaking.Especially knowing how under paid the creative arts industry is already.
Because shouldn’t a creative person know better when it comes to branding, advertising etc?
Here’s the difference between a greedy business person and a smart one;
The “SMARTY ” I mean “SMART” one would ask government for the contract to use the buses for advertisement. And then probably pay government a percentage of all profits made. Now you may not get your millions immediately, but managed properly could easily become a lucrative business. And who knows in the future you could have you own buses solely for this purpose.
A greedy business person, is, well, let’s just say errr hmmmm, looking for the right word. Ah, there it is, ok so a greedy business person is just plain stupid. Because they’re so focused on the millions they can make fast, than the billions they can accumulate through time.
And there I thought we had Smarty, sorry I mean Smart people in this industry.
And yes that was shade….
*Pause*
P.S. Dear Mahama, please don’t comment on this issue. You’re supposed to have bigger problems. If you trust the people you’ve appointed they should be able to get to the bottom of this and take appropriate action. If they don’t, then we will come for you, because you hired them.
Sincerely,
The girl you love to hate ?
*Play*
So that’s all folks, and remember, it’s never too late to get SMART”