Ghana’s population keeps increasing but we have the same limited amenities we have had since the days of Nkrumah. The population has grown from barely six million at the time of independence to almost thirty million as per the results of the last Population and Housing Census. The population is growing rapidly yet development is at a standstill, and herein lies one of our biggest challenges.
Yet family planning does not seem to be our cup of tea. We have people breeding indiscriminately with no means of providing these poor unsuspecting children even their most basic needs. It is common to find women on the streets with nowhere to live and no means of even providing for themselves, yet they have not less than six children, the last barely a year older than the one before. When you have parents who can barely support themselves not to talk of taking proper care of numerous children, it is inevitable that the streets will be flooded with delinquents with no home training whatsoever or basic human decency.
That explains all the vagabonds we have plying the streets and the high rate of crime. Former President of Ghana and Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has noted that this kind of indiscriminate breeding is putting a lot of pressure on the limited resources and infrastructure we have in place. At the 23rd anniversary and fundraising service of Powerhouse Ministries International, the ex-President bemoaned the fact that children who are supposed to be seen as national assets have rather turned out to be liabilities, which is a cause for concern.
“Part of our poverty, apart from all that has been said, family planning which we don’t want to adopt is also contributing to our impoverishment. I went to the Upper West Region, and a woman came to thank us for introducing inoculation. Now she doesn’t have to have six, seven or eight children for the fear that some would die,” he said.
In his opinion, we will face even greater challenges in the future if we do no check the way citizens reproduce without a care.