24-Hour Economy: Political albatross?

The narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge recounts the story of a sailor who kills an albatross, a large sea bird considered to be a bird of good luck to sailors.

Later on, when the ship runs out of water, the sailor is blamed by his shipmates for the misfortune and is compelled to carry the dead bird around his neck as punishment.

To carry an albatross around one’s neck is to be confronted with a situation or problem which one cannot easily or satisfactorily deal with.

Just as an old car can be an albatross around an individual’s neck because of the inherent intractable maintenance problems it may impose on its owner, a political party may be saddled with a political albatross, which may manifest as the party’s seeming inability or difficulty in adequately establishing clear paths for achieving the objectives of its political agenda, especially in a crucial election year like 2024.

Arena

A peek into the political arena of the country’s two major political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) suggests that at present showing, the ruling NPP is selling aspects of its vision, policies and programmes to the electorate and has been receiving feedback that would help prepare its manifesto for the December 7 General Elections.

The 24-hour economy being propounded by the NDC may well be described as a political albatross around its neck for the simple reason that the party or its leadership is yet to provide a convincing, coherent definition of the concept for public consumption.

Since former President Mahama presented the idea, there has been a keen sense of anticipation for the concept to be broken down into digestible bits for the ordinary citizen to understand and appreciate.

In fact, some economic experts hold the view that a 24-hour economy cannot be described as a policy, but should be seen as an outcome of a demand-driven policy, for instance, for purposes of job creation or a vigorous industrialisation scheme.

Certainly, the NDC campaign team can mount a better public education drive on this matter. With the campaign teams of NPP and NDC already launched, all is set for what should be peaceful, clean, insult-free, highly competitive, issues-based electioneering campaigns when the Electoral Commission officially gives the green light.

While the other “minor” political parties lace their boots to join in the fray, it’s incumbent on the electorate to endeavour to carefully scrutinise and weigh the many promises that the parties will throw into the public space so that they can make informed choices according to the quality of the messages of the parties and their contesting presidential and parliamentary candidates.

In all this, voters must be minded to set national interests over and above personal parochial political considerations.

The writer is a retired educationist.
E-mail: josephamuah349@gmail.com