From Eric’s Diary: How Dr Bawumia is inadvertently kicking away the ladder of self-actualisation from his northern nieces – Kayayei

The word ‘Kayayoo’, whose plural form is ‘Kayayei’, is of Ga origin. The original word, ‘Kaya’ is Hausa which means load or goods.

My foremothers who mostly engaged in trading within Accra’s Central Business District (CBD) used the services of male potters who they called ‘Kaya-kaya.’ ‘Kaya-kaya’ was the expression used by the male potters to communicate their intention to assist in transporting the loads or goods of the traders to the intended destinations for a fee.

That is because these male potters hailed from the northern parts of Ghana and could neither speak the Ga nor English languages. Needless to add that I witnessed the transportation of water by these potters through the carrying of two cans held together by a log hung on their shoulders as a child growing up in the Central Business District. We called them ‘Kayaruwa’. Ruwa in Hausa means water.

It was when the female potters came in that my foremothers referred to them as Kayayoo/Kayayei. These mostly young women of northern extraction carry neck-breaking heavy loads on their heads for a fee. In the regional capitals including Accra, they can be seen at market centres and lorry parks with their characteristic pans ready to carry loads for their clients.

The daily income earned by these energetic young women is nothing to write home about. How they manage to foot their medical as well as other pertinent bills is a wonder. These vital human resources bestowed on Ghana are exposed to the vagaries of the weather and the teenagers among them fall prey to jobless drunks and pimps.

Teenage pregnancy, extreme deprivation and squalor is their portion. Some of them sleep in front of shops in the Makola- Okaishie enclave of the CBD while the majority find themselves in Agbogbloshie, a slum community where victims of the Konkomba–Nanumba conflict (also known as the Guinea fowl war), a tribal war which occurred in Northern Ghana in 1994, were settled when they arrived in Accra.

Dr Bawumia to the rescue?

In 2019, during the campaign for the 2020 elections, Vice President Dr Mahamudu promised the head porters a decent place of abode when he visited their base in Agbogbloshie and witnessed at first hand the squalor in which they reside. He promised to build hostel facilities for them.

In fulfilment of this promise, the now flagbearer of the New Patriotic Paty (NPP), has commissioned ultra-modern hostel facilities, as well as a skills training and empowerment centres in Accra for the head porters.

According to reports, the Vice President has gone beyond the initial promise to provide accommodation, by empowering the disadvantaged girls with skills.

“This noble endeavour resonates profoundly with the core values of our mission, as it squarely addresses the pressing needs of a marginalized segment of our society that has long been relegated to the shadows of neglect and indifference, he said.

The statement below is an acknowledgement of the picture I painted earlier. Dr Bawumia continued…

“From the harsh realities of homelessness to the glaring deficiencies in access to adequate health care and the pervasive scourge of urban harassment, their plight stands as a stark testament to the moral imperative of urgent intervention to uplift and transform their lives.” Please note this- …”urgent intervention to uplift and transform their lives.”

Dr. Bawumia noted that government’s concern is not only to provide decent accommodation to the head porters, but to also create a pathway which will empower them to be self-employed, so that they would not have to go back to the streets, hence the establishment of the Kayayei Empowerment Programme.

According to him, the programme has been meticulously conceived and crafted.

“Over the span of three weeks, participants will be immersed in a transformative learning experience, encompassing essential modules such as baking and beading, supplemented by invaluable soft skills training in personal health care, financial management, and entrepreneurial acumen.”

“Crucially, the provision of post-training support and implementation of a track and trace model, serves as the linchpin of the program’s efficacy, with participants receiving starter packs tailored to facilitate their seamless integration into new economic opportunities and further ensure that beneficiaries do not return to being head porters,” Dr. Bawumia added.

In addition to the programmes on offer, Dr. Bawumia also revealed that discussions with Aayalolo and Metro Mass, are ongoing, for the two agencies to equip some of the Kayayei with driving skills.

Kicking away the ladder

For my Master’s degree in Public Affairs at the prestigious University of Ghana, I took a course in globalization. The lecturer introduced us to a book written by a South Korean Economist titled ‘Kicking away the ladder.’

The gist of the book is that developed countries are “kicking away the ladder” that they climbed to become rich. In place of that, they are foisting upon developing countries a set of policies wholly unsuited for our economic conditions and contrary to our economic interests.

The main objective of this approach is to keep the developing countries undeveloped. The evidence is in the dolling out of grants and aid through the USAIDs, UKAIDs, DANIDAs, GIZs etc in sectors that only feed their industries with needed raw materials. Check and you will find that most of the programmes by these donor agencies are agric-based- Sustainable farming, fisheries and related sectors.

I was of the conviction that it is to break from this jinx that President Akufo-Addo in his first term, came up with the policy of Ghana Beyond Aid. Somehow, they have managed to convince him that it is not possible.

They have created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to offer economies that find themselves struggling due to the imposed policies, the necessary help. Of course, with stringent conditionalities that can only be accepted by a desperate government. No wonder our economy takes two steps forward and four steps backward. In other words, we turn the corner and reverse in speed mode.

To the extent that our PhD level economists are unable to recognize that the basic cause of the depreciation of the cedi against major currencies is the fact that we import way more than we export. And the man in charge of the economy says the cedi is depreciating because of speculation on the market and payments made to road contractors. Hm!

This makes one wonder whether it is the case that we know the solutions to our problems, but we cannot implement them due to closed door discussions that officials of the Bretton Woods institutions have with our leaders, or we are actually clueless about what to do.

 Kicking away the ladder of self-actualisation from the Kayayei

According to wikepedia, self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled.

To say that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has realized his fullest potential is to state the obvious. Like his northern nieces, the Kayayei, he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, yet the society he grew up in made sure that made it in life. According to him, his beginnings were very humble.

“I attended Sakasaka Primary School in Tamale, Tamale Secondary School, Buckingham University in the UK, Oxford University and Simon Fraser University in Canada. However, it has not been an easy journey.

My work experience includes a stint as a farm-by-day worker during holidays in my secondary school years, to driving a minicab (taxi) in London and cleaning dormitories in Canada as I studied for my PhD to make ends meet. God has brought me this far,” Dr Bawumia revealed when he won the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) flagbearership race. This is the basis of his ‘It is possible slogan.’

However, unlike his northern nieces, the kind of governance and or economic dispensation that made it possible for his father who started off as a teacher to work hard, save money in order to send him (the 12^th of 18 children) abroad for further education, is currently nonexistent. The scenario is worse if Dr Bawumia got the opportunity to study abroad through a government scholarship scheme.

I can’t help but mention that Dr Bawumia’s association with management of Ghana’s economy dates back to the year 2000 when he started work as an Economist at the Bank of Ghana, rising through the ranks to become Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana. His status as the head of the current Economic Management Team is public knowledge.

Unfortunately, his 24 years of association with the management of the economy has not yielded the desired results. His only excuse is that he has never been the one who calls the shots. “I am only the driver’s mate,” he explained.

Nonetheless, thanks to the prevailing economic hardship, the parents of his Kayayei nieces are unable to cater for their precious children’s physiological needs such as food, water and shelter.  The innocent, mostly teenage girls have no option than to as we say in Ghana, take their lives into their own hands by fending for themselves far away from home.

And their uncle’s strategic solution to their plight is a residential 3-week skills training programme?

It’s time to go

I dare say that there is no way this programme will curb the phenomenon of Kayayei. Dr Bawumia knows this very well. Yet, like the developed countries keep doing to us, the Kayayei Empowerment Programme has been crafted beautifully to give the head potters a sense of well-being only to be left to their fate upon exiting.

How can a 3-week skills training in baking “uplift and transform their lives” when the long-standing baker in Sekondi-Takoradi is folding up due to the high cost of flour? How can a 3-week trained baker compete with the baker of A1 bread whose price is now GHC10 for the size a loaf that any teenager can consume in seconds?

Like the developed countries are doing to us, Dr Bawumia is making his nieces feel important by touting the benefits of entrepreneurship to them when he knows very well that the pittance that would be given to them as capital upon exit can only serve as T&T back to base.

It beats my imagination why officials of this government keep recommending entrepreneurship to anyone who finds him or herself unemployed.  Especially when beneficiaries of the Youth Enterprises Support (YES) Fund are nowhere near success. Needless to add that the fund managers are grappling with high incidence of non-repayment of the loans granted the beneficiaries.

In my humble opinion, the least these young girls deserve is the opportunity Dr Bawumia had at their age- “farm-by-day worker.” With this, they can earn income with which they can plan their future, including pursuing tertiary education like hid did.

Why our Ministry of Agriculture cannot promote a Public Private Partnerships in agricultural plantations up north that would employ large numbers of the youth as farm hands to produce enough food for our consumption is another pet peeve of mine.

What these Kayayei need is regular sources of income with social security benefits such as one that an agro-based industrial set up can offer.

Time without number, I have heard various experts point to agriculture and industrialization as the solution to our plight, yet all our former sector minister for agric could do was to bring plantain from the farm gate to the ministry for sale when we complained about high prices. Unfortunately, his successor has neglected his core mandate and is engaged in buying hotels.

Consequently, the challenge of high post-harvest losses which I read about for my O-levels in 1988 still persists. Thus, we seem to be light years away from attaining food sufficiency.

And the other strategic solution to the plight of Kayayei is training to drive which Aayalolo bus? The over 100 broken-down ones? The ones that the ‘trotros’ have forced out of business?

Clearly, there is no way this initiative can enable the numerous Kayayei navigate their ways up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to the apex – Self-actualization. It is for this reason that I used the word ‘inadvertently’ in the title to this piece. That’s because big uncle Bawumia may not realise that per what he has put forward, he is kicking away the ladder they need to get to where he is or anywhere closer.

Salamat Tinggal – That’s goodbye in Indonesian

Let God lead! Follow Him directly, not through any human.

The writer is the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Columnist of the Year- 2022. He is the author of two books whose contents share knowledge on how anyone desirous of writing like him can do so. Eric can be reached via email [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post From Eric’s Diary: How Dr Bawumia is inadvertently kicking away the ladder of self-actualisation from his northern nieces – Kayayei first appeared on 3News.

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