“We can’t just be happy because a road has been tarred” – Mensa Otabil

• Posted on February 18, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Pastor Mensa Otabil has rallied Ghanaians to be independent-minded and resist the temptation to be content with supplies of minimal goods and services such as roads, water and electricity by the state.

“We can’t just be happy because a road has been tarred. We can’t just be happy that we didn’t have electricity now we have electricity. We can’t be happy with minimals”, the founder of the International Central Gospel Church said at a Springboard event.

Mensa Otabil stressed that “citizens must have an appetite for better”. The pastor explained that he sensed the nation has entered into a period of depression.

“We are a country in need of inspiration…there is enough depression to swallow not only this generation but several to come after us.”

Diagnosing the problem, Pastor Otabil lamented that the state had become too intrusive in the lives of Ghanaians.

“The state is doing everything…running our hospitals running all our schools, employing all the people and messing it up big time”.

In a 7-minute exhortation, Otabil rallied Ghanaians to take back the running of their lives by the state through politicians.

The popular pastor cautioned against construing political meanings into his statement. “I am not saying that in a political sense. I am not saying take back from one party and give it to another party”.

Touting a key capitalist principle, Dr. Otabil prescribed that the state should be limited to providing an enabling environment so that private enterprise can flourish.

“We have to get to the point where it is not the state running the country, it is the people running out the country, it is entrepreneurs… the state should get out of hospitals, get out of schools.”

An active state is responsible for the shutdown of healthcare system when doctors go on strike. In a testament to the huge control of the state, the revered motivational speaker said there is no private hospital employing 20 doctors in Ghana.

If Ghanaians dare to dream and dare to take back their lives from the government, it should be possible to see the state employing not more than 5% of doctors in Ghana, he envisioned.

Speaking to young people at a Springboard event, Otabil charged the new breed of Ghanaian youth to kick out the state control of the Ghanaian economy.

Corruption, he traced, can the linked to governments. Picking out corruption in the procurement sector, Otabil found it unacceptable that “almost everything we buy is bought for the government”.

“…that is what feeds the corruption in this country”, he said, noting that private companies are less inclined to inflate prices of items because they appreciate the value of money.

“Unfortunately, governments have no appreciation for the money that comes to them because they didn’t generate it. We give it to them,” he said to rippling applause.

-Myjoyonline