The economic facts are a part of the reflection on peoples’ lives. The Economy can tell us what is going on, but not what the citizens should do about it. What we should do depends largely on what the government values and how the government thinks about the citizens. Before we find our way into the particular moral questions associated with the economy, it makes sense to spend a little time thinking about morality.
Part of the point here is that we have to emphasize the fact that human beings are living in accordance with principle and this fact will matter once we have some debate for action on the social and economic deficit in our country on the table.
Moliere said “it is not only for what we do that we are responsible, but also for what we do not do”. This brings us to Kant’s conception of right and wrong, for Kant, doing the right thing is not a matter of the consequences of action, partly because there is a good chance that consequences are beyond the actor’s control. Kant thought that morality is a matter of duty as opposed to something instrumental, so consequences should not figure into our reflections directly.
Human beings should do what is right because it is right, not because you get something in return for the action. So morality, Kant argues, cannot be hypothetical in nature. That is what makes us human beings and distinguishes us from nature.
Is it right to say that every human has objectives and goals, however, unless those goals are part or link to a grand scheme, they have no meaning on their own.
I am saying this because we have institutions or ministries, which are all linked and none of them is standing alone. For example the Ministry of Agric, is linked to the Industry, Trade, Finance, Education, Health, Employment and Environment Ministries under the Government.
In the developmental process, it will not function well if there is a break in a small part of this circle. Therefore, the objectives and goals of the Minister must be linked to the betterment of the citizens.
For example, the Ministry of Agric introduced a brilliant policy “Planting for Food and Jobs”, food has been planted, and what happens to the excess food harvested.
Naturally, there is the need to industrialize them, while the Trade Ministry assists in finding markets abroad; the Education Ministry trains students for the new industries and agricultural expansion;
The health ministry maintains the health of staffs and their dependants to give them health security, environment ensure sustainability and the result would be economic growth. So as the individual professions, medicine or law profession is meaningless unless quality service can be provided to people, it means, it must have moral implication as to the duty to the society.
Furthermore, Civil servants are servants to the public and not the public who are servants to them, that is the meaning, it is their moral responsibility to provide service to the citizens on behalf of the government.
Not until we understand this moral principle we cannot achieve efficiency. Hence it will undermine productivity and development, the by-product of the misunderstanding of the moral duty is corruption and abuse of power. This keeps the country away from true development and keeps investors away.
We have certain duties or obligations to someone in a certain set of circumstances, then, all things being equal, consistency requires that we have just the same duties or obligations to other people in similar circumstances.
If I think that I deserve treatment of a certain sort, then others in my situation deserve treatment of that sort too. Everybody deserves better education, better health care, better roads etc. If the minister thinks that better education is good for his/her children, then our children too deserve better education.
When a political party takes power it forms a government, and is no longer a political party, they are doing not only on the basis of their right to do so but as part of their obligation to the security of their country and its people.
This security assurance to their people is being made in the interest of the security of the Ghanaian economy rather than the party or the individual interest and security” When is good for me is good for the country and is good for everybody
As a country, we have serious problems, it will be difficult to develop without the concept of morality. It is right to say, there is no productivity and efficiency since about 95% of Services providers, and businesses make profit from price increase but not from productivity and efficiency.
Our governments have become progressive state but not progressive growth, in order to have progressive growth. The economy has to be driven by a combination of competitive market, sustained innovation, and responsible businesses, this can provide room for growth and start the spark.
It is a fact that our government has made mistakes as any other government does, but we need to revisit history to see what went wrong to correct them. But in order to do that, serious reform must happen at the institutional level with vigorous implementation. It is the moral duty for a government to provide good social, economic and environmental conditions for its citizens and provide an enabling environment for businesses to grow.
Any development strategy must recall what we learned a long time ago. Questions may have been asked as to why all our industries have collapsed? Why have our hospitals run down and the structures left to fall apart? Why have our schools run down? Why have pot holes developed a year after a new road is constructed?
Why have we visited the IMF 17 times? Why are there so many good policies but they have failed? Why are we always in debt? What are our research centres doing? There are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves before we develop a new one.
We still deal with moral questions, integrity and good reputation which politicians must seek and you will be remembered every day for generations to come. Nobody will remember your money which is unproductive, packed under a mattress which sometimes tempts me to believe that there is no God, because someone will swindle or contrive the budget for hospitals, leaving people to die because of lack of hospital consumables, beds etc. This is immoral.
There is more room for taxation (moral tax) which will not affect vulnerable people by focusing on non-filers. There are a lot of taxations that can directly address the failure of the market and increase government revenue. Tax Widening is the next topic in mind.
By Dr. Edward Kwadwo Yeboah, Kumasi
*The Writer is an Economic Development Consultant
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
