CAST YOUR BREAD UPON THE WATERS

One of the realities of living anywhere is that you will need furniture and appliances. The refrigerators and stoves can be purchased in one of the local stores. On the other hand, furniture can be purchased from retailers or locally made. The prices charged for different furniture items in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana seemed especially attractive to me. Accordingly, I had two beds, four side tables, and two wardrobes from a local furniture builder. Since I was quite impressed with his work and fees, I decided to have a desk, two chairs, and a dressing table. That might be used by any female relative visiting my home sometime soon. The beds made for me seemed quite archaic. They were actually wooden rectangular box frames consisting of five different pieces. Four pieces were fastened and held together by metal hooks in the corners. The fifth piece just sat unattached to anything else in the middle of the box. What a contrast to the beds I was accustomed to in the USA? Which only consisted of two pieces at the most. These Ghanaian beds were essentially large boxes, with a support structure in the middle resting on four legs standing on the floor. On top of this support structure made of rough wood, the mattress was deposited into the box bed. There were no springs built into the mattress. Which was essentially a large, very thick piece of hard sponge that enabled the user to rest comfortably while sleeping at night. Although those thick sponge mattresses were meticulously cut into large rectangular shapes and attractively wrapped and packaged in a beautiful cloth.

I soon discovered that such beds couldn’t traditionally be made daily. It was simply impossible to tuck the sheets or blankets beneath the mattress. Which was deeply embedded in the box and rested on its wooden support. The best that could be done was to push and lodge the sheets or blankets between the mattress and the planed and polished outer frame of the box. Just to promote an appearance of neatness and order. This arrangement had its setbacks because before retiring to bed at night or at any other time. The bedclothes had to be painstakingly removed from their previous location. To enable the occupant to get into bed beneath the blankets and sheets. So that the sleeper’s nocturnal experience would be relatively comfortable. There were other setbacks while attempting to sleep at night in Ghana. The presence of mosquitoes is always an unwelcome factor. They invariably announce their presence by loud buzzing around your ears. Before they inevitably land on some vulnerable part of your body. What I have found, however, is that having a mosquito coil burning outside your bedroom door a few feet from the entrance. Prevents their entrance into your private chamber, enabling you to breathe comfortably during the night. Another distraction, if your light is on, is watching helplessly as some small reptile slithers through the part of the wooden door jamb with a nail hole available to facilitate its exit.

Of course, other attention-grabbing diversions abound, such as watching a monitor lizard that has obviously lost its way by entering your bedroom. Make a hasty exit through some crevice in the window. Once it becomes aware that you have seen and are watching his antics. If such were the only challenges I encountered in Ghana, I would hardly have anything to write about. Life, however, is never that simple and uneventful. In 2021, Ghana went through a full-blown, drawn-out economic crisis. There were many contributing factors to this catastrophe. Because that is exactly what it was. Foreign exchange notes of every kind became scarce. Merchants had difficulty paying for the importation of goods that they needed to purchase. The Government of Ghana could barely service its foreign debt. Many economists pointed fingers at the political leaders, and accusations of every genre flew across the political spectrum as the blame game intensified. Problems identified included excessive government spending and inadequate import substitution of goods that can be locally produced. One of the most egregious negatives was the massive government bureaucracy, which always contributes to the flight of foreign exchange. The fact that COVID-19 had also upreared its ugly head in the Gold Coast was of no help to this country. The Government of Ghana blamed this pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war as the main causative factors precipitating Ghana’s economic crisis.

Ghana, a country once described as Africa’s shining star by the World Bank, had the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2019 after it doubled its economic growth. But today, it is no longer the economic poster boy of West Africa. Despite being a major cocoa and gold exporter, it is currently battling its worst financial crisis in decades with inflation hovering at a record 50.3 percent, the highest in 21 years. Ghana’s economic successes were in the limelight when the new government of President Nana Akufo-Addo took power in January 2017 and brought down inflation significantly. Under the previous government in 2016, it was 15.4 percent, and it fell to 7.9 percent by the end of 2019 and remained in single digits until the pandemic hit in March 2020. Ghana’s budget deficit, which was about 6.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product before Akufo-Addo’s government came to power, was brought down to less than 5 percent of GDP by the end of 2019.

ALJAZEERA: How Ghana, Africa’s Rising Star, Ended Up In Economic Turmoil.

Ghana’s inflationary spiral did not rush in with the suddenness of a tidal wave. Rather, it was creeping. The price of food and other imported items gradually rose each month. Even the price of transportation increased. The cost of riding from Berekum to Sofokyere on the traditional Okada rose from 1.50 GHS to 3.00 GHS by 2023. Apparently, the operators of these three-wheeled taxis don’t consider this increase adequate. Therefore, they frequently carry four passengers instead of the three they are mandated to do by law. Everyone in Ghana was placed under rapid gunfire as the economic pressures intensified. No one was immune to the financial hurricane, and the winds were ferocious. There were many choruses of bitter complaints from entertainers, medical and educational professionals, and celebrities.

Ghanaian actress Yvonne Nelson has once again tackled President Nana Dankwa Akufo Addo over the country’s current economic hardships. Lamenting the high cost of living in Ghana, the actress took to Twitter to bitterly complain about the price of a certain eye drop she uses daily to prevent her from going blind. Yvonne disclosed that she risks contracting Glaucoma without that particular eye drop, which now costs double its initial price. “Mr. President Nana Akufo Addo this eye drop (Xalacom) was 120 ghc, its now 273 ghc, and even 300 ghc in some pharmacies.

GHANA WEB: My Eye Drop Now Costs 300 ghc, Yvonne Nelson Wails. Asks Akufo Addo Eight Questions, 17 October 2022.

The additional furniture items I desired were paid for in June of 2021. If the furniture maker had attempted to make them as expeditiously as I had urged him to, he wouldn’t have encountered any problems. But as the saying goes, “Procrastination is the thief of time.” For whatever reason (and he proffered many). Some of them included having to complete urgent work out of town. Or being given managerial responsibilities at the carpenter’s shop where he worked. Unfortunately, none of his explanations was satisfactory. Especially since he was absent for several weeks from time to time. When I asked him for some reasonable explanation, his platitudes sounded like Anancy stories. If this furniture maker was a complete stranger, I would probably have dealt with him drastically. But he was a member of my church, a brother in Christ. The fact that I could never get him on the phone when I called to speak with him definitely didn’t help. He started talking to me seriously about the items of furniture for which I had paid him in full at the height of Ghana’s economic crisis. Attempting to claim that the price of everything had suddenly increased. I simply reminded him that he had been paid for the furniture long before Ghana had been catapulted into economic turmoil.

“Excuses attempt to conceal personal or professional insecurities, laziness, and/or lack of ability. They accomplish nothing but to distract, dilute, and deceive. It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)