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Some of us are getting very alarmed by the rate and depth of deterioration that is going on across the country. Infrastructure is deteriorating, morality is crumbling, truth is becoming a rare attribute, greed is on the ascendancy, lack of respect has become a symbol of success. Yes, this is the Ghana of His Excellency Professor Dr. John Evans Atta-Mills, Esq. PhD. For the past couple of months, things seem to have been completely out of control. I was having a chat with a good friend of mine yesterday morning and her simple answer to our problems was that we have a leader who has lost complete control and simply keeps waffling and dithering. Things are rapidly falling apart under our very noses but the so-called leader does not even appreciate the depth of the national malaise. That indeed is the real pity. Some of us were indeed prepared to give our President a period of grace to find his feet. By their own logic, but against all the evidence, they inherited the worst economy that this country has ever had. Some decent and fair-minded Ghanaians were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt�. but not indefinitely. Alas, those who were convinced from day one that our country would be heading in the wrong direction, given the kind of characters that the Head of State appointed as managers of our affairs, have been amply vindicated. We seem to be taking a step forward and three backward at any given time during the last thirty odd months that Professor J.E.A. Mills has been at the helm of affairs. Woe betides anyone who would dare draw their attention to what is clearly going wrong. First, it was the opposition media and politicians. Then came the so-called Father of their party, who was followed quickly by his spouse, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and her FONKAR brigade. And now�.it is the die-hard apologist of the NDC regime, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., who has at long last recognised what many Ghanaians had long known. The real surprise is not in the fact that the Mr. Know-All-of �Ghanaian-journalism has joined the national consensus that things are not going well. The surprise is that he has decided to scramble for his own safety. He is seeing the writing on the wall. Pratt is running away from his sponsors. In one of the most revealing radio performances of our time, Mr. Pratt said it exactly as almost all real Ghanaians have been saying it. The cost of living in this country is becoming unbearable, except of course for the likes of Agyenim-Boateng, Okudzeto-Ablakwa, Baba Jamal and the rest of the marauding hordes of boot lickers who are manning the Mills gate. To any objective observer, times have grown more and more difficult and complicated. Name any particular item including the most basic and the price has escalated. I was surprised, indeed shocked when I went to a convenience shop behind my residence recently to buy a box of matches. The price had suddenly been shifted upwards from 5 pesewas to ten pesewas. The price of koobi had been revised upwards, toilet paper had gone up from 40 pesewas to 60 pesewas in just a matter of days, etc. etc. As for the seasonal items of everyday necessity, the prices keep running away, depending on which month of the year. In addition to these new items of major worry and concern to the average Ghanaian, we have also to grapple with problems of shortages. As we speak we have no guarantee that the chronic shortage of LPG can ever be solved and yet day in, day out, we hear Lady Aryittey�s sermons regarding climate change and the greenhouse effect and all that kind of jazz. Only Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Baba Jamal and the rest of the nouveaux riche can tell the trick�. how to preserve the forest by refusing to use charcoal when you have no assurance of a regular supply of gas. For almost 48 hours sometime last week, electricity simply refused to flow, in some catchment areas of the Airport Residential Area/Dzorwulu, and yet we are admonished not to use firewood for cooking and other purposes. Talk about school fees to any parent and the reaction is the same, and yet when the opposition guys talk about the same thing, Okudzeto will ramble all manner of statistics about school uniforms and text books as if those are the only things that go into educating a child in the country. As a matter of fact, that nightmare continues unabated on all fronts. Already, there are stories that the oil money is getting into private bank accounts. Crooks who left the NDC years ago have now found comfort in the arms of the man who sees nothing and hears nothing of the pervasive sleaze going around him. This is indeed the golden age of the Better Ghana bogey for some of our not too long ago unemployed youths but who are now in full flight. . To add insult to our deep injuries, our Government has perfected the art of lying to us. We were told clearly and loudly that some blissful age for our security forces was close and near because for the first time in the history of mankind, they were going to be the beneficiaries of some massive and beautiful mansions befitting their status of the country�s saviours. Where are those housing units? Our President, amidst pomp and pageantry, moved from one corner of the country to another cutting all manner of sods when in some cases he had not been granted the authority to do what he was purporting to do. When are the Volta and Brong-Ahafo universities going to open their doors to new undergraduates? At least, the people of the Volta Region are posing that poignant question. Where is our University, they are asking. Soon nobody should be surprised when and if the chiefs and people of the Brong-Ahafo region throw in the same question. The honest question that is going round is: What is going on? We have not been through a civil war like some countries in Africa; we have been lucky over the past couple of years to be beneficiaries of major windfalls in the prices of some of our major exports, especially cocoa and gold, we are endlessly being told from roof tops that our macro economy has over stabilized�.. inflation has hit historically low levels, the budget deficit has shrunk to all-time lows, arrears have been settled for contractors who, if what we are told is correct, had not been paid their contract moneys for the first time in donkey years; we are told every single minute that we are the most blessed country on Earth because we have a sanctimonious apostle for a Head of State. All these we are made to note every single day. And so, why are we suffering so much? Is Kufour�s invisible hand robbing us of our entitlement to a decent living standard? Is Nana Akufo-Addo playing some juju magic on us so that as soon as the goodies get into our pockets they slip through some hole? The irritating phenomenon is that instead of those who have been given the privilege and honour to sort out the so-called mess that they claim to have inherited, they are deepening our woes and busying their bodies stealing our limited resources and embarking on insulting sprees and wantonly displaying their newfound wealth and power. What surprises many of us is that these guys are so indifferent to what is happening to the average Ghanaian. The level of incompetence that is on display in the affairs of this country is unprecedented and yet they are not interested in wise counsel. When Mrs. Rawlings recently had the courage and the verve to tell a group of visiting women dignitaries what we have all known for a while; that this country is one of the most expensive countries in the world, Okudzeto had the effrontery to dispute her statement. Now Kwesi Pratt is telling them virtually the same thing. Let us wait to hear what Okudzeto will say in response to their famous and insincere apologist. For the rest of us, there should be no let down until that dull gentleman is booted out of the Castle in December 2012 so that he can have the rest that he needs so badly. He is clearly not cut to run a sophisticated African country like Ghana. We have had enough of his lousiness, hypocrisy, sluggishness, lies and lack of direction. Ghana clearly deserves far better than the shameful and uninspiring leadership he is pretending to be offering. After 54 years of independence, nobody would have ever dreamt that we would be hearing of Ministers trying to bribe journalists to write stories that they know to be fully untrue. But here we are. It is now part of our staple to be fed on ��.lies, untruths, spins, bullying, et al. Mills has indeed managed to swindle this country and succeeded in taking us to disgraceful levels of mediocrity where integrity and honour count for nothing. Honestly, who can justify the purchase of FIVE planes for the Armed Forces, including a hangar to the tune of over $250 million? What a shame! Long Live our Republic.