Venerated Ghanaian actor and satirist, Kwaku Sintim-Misa, popularly known as KSM, has called on the government to take drastic actions in solving Ghana’s myriad of problems.
He told Joy Entertainment’s Kwame Dadzie in a yet-to-be-aired interview on Joy Prime TV that Ghana’s major problem now is that “we have lost the plot. We have driven ourselves into a ditch and now we are trying to see how to get ourselves out of the ditch.”
Proffering ways of saving Ghana’s current situation, KSM said the leaders should employ the theory of levity and gravity; where it finds a balance of staying between austere measures and benign ones.
He also charged the President to apologise to the citizens for plunging them into uncomfortable situations.
“The President should come and tell us that we are in a big mess. And that ‘we are sorry.’ We created this mess. The mess didn’t come from anywhere oo. It came from our own pettiness; drove us this far,” he said.
“The first thing to do is to scrap ex gratia without thinking that the ex gratia from now to [say] five years is being scrapped. Let us cut down the number people at the Presidency to let the people know that we are in a mess,” KSM further stated.
Ex gratia, as captured in Article 71 of Ghana’s constitution as part of the end-of-service benefits given to some public servants.
He explained that to do this, the government would have to explain to Ghanaians how much money would be saved if the ex gratia is cancelled.
Ghana is faced with inflation as prices of basic commodities keep going up.
The Ghanaian currency, the cedi, has also performed terribly against the US dollar.
Aside from the economic variables, a lot of the people in the country have on several occasions bashed the government for being irresponsible and corrupt in discharge of its duties.
The government has also been mauled for not providing quality healthcare across the nation, not instituting a functional affordable housing system, lapses in the educational system, among a barrage of concerns.
In the wake of these, the Ghanaian has over time, remonstrated the scourge of hardship and the afore-mentioned problems through the media, petitions, strikes and demonstrations.
Watch KSM’s interview on governance, creative arts education, comedy and more on Joy Prime TV on Friday, February 10, 2023 at 5:30pm.
