Rewind: 1982. Teacher asks Abokyi Mensah, a class four pupil: "What is a budget?" Nervous, with hands at the back, Abokyi answers: "Time of year when government raises prices." Fast forward: November 15, 2007. NDC parliamentarians asked the same question. Answer: "AGBEDEFU." Abokyi overhears; asks office-mate, Yaa Kobi: "Agbodo what?" Yaa, appearing to know, confidently responds: "…..fool." With gratitude, Abokyi exclaims: "Oh! Belly-full? OK."

Abokyi, now a 35 year-old fully-grown man, stands tall, proud and mighty, married with three children; a 22 year-old skinny concubine lurks in his shadows. He still does not understand what a budget is. He cannot manage his personal finances beyond giving a pittance of ‘chop-money’ to the wife who dutifully conjures magic with it month after month.

So, a national budget presentation, in which millions of Ghana cedis are thrown about in a two-hour speech, is beyond his frame of reference. Abokyi will never understand; will forever remain clueless, year after year whether under an NHP, CDP or AYP administration. Some of us – I and probably you – will also remain clueless!

A budget can be a fuzzy foggy compilation of unrelated issues. A budget either devours intelligence or shrinks it to the size of a nut. So if you cannot grasp the totality of a national budget, you pick a few issues that appear to have immediacy because they can potentially cause hardships and inconveniences and make your heart palpitate; you blow up such issues, out of context. You run away with them like a truck with dysfunctional brakes – downhill. A case in point: the mobile phone tax. You’ll think that is the central point of the 2008 budget!

From my faulty jagged vantage point, a glaring feature of the 2008 budget (apart from the beaten-to-death mobile phone matter) can be summed up in a five-letter word: VOTES! Electioneering years are great years because they present opportunities to the populace and the incumbent. It is a win-win for all.

An incumbent leader/party gets a unique chance to cover numerous grounds – right wrongs committed intentionally and unintentionally; fulfil promises that were never meant to be fulfilled at the time of utterance but for which political points were scored, gleefully; complete half-baked, half-done projects; and renew friendships that had gone sour, abandoned or flushed down the filthy tubes and carelessly sacrificed at the altar of power.

When such consequential matters are taken care of with sensitivity, chances of forgiveness from the electorate are enhanced. Results? Votes!

A certain simpleton sees VOTES in the umbrella statement of the 2008 budget: "Growth through massive infrastructure development." The areas identified – roads, water and energy – spell votes.

If you drive on safari-like roads, if water periodically flows through your taps, if after surviving a one-year power rationing you continue to witness street lights stay on all day long and you have that nagging fear that the "lights-off-on-off" regime might return when global warming knocks on the door, the budget goals will sooth you. Spell: VOTES!

The tempo of this budget is expressed in the projects envisaged. Note. To construct and tar 15 kms of roads in each district over the course of next year – electioneering year! Ha! A consideration will be particularly given "to access roads to agricultural towns and villages and commercial centres." Spell: rural/urban VOTES! Haha! Five communities in each of the 166 districts will be provided with electricity and good drinking water.

Hugs! "The dualisation of the Accra-Kumasi highway!" Kisses! The "construction of a railway network for the Western corridor!" Group hug! And, the construction of more dams than you can count – from Oti, through Bui to Pra. So much love! Hallelujah! Clearly, these projects amount to votes, not Agbedefu (meaning – ‘life is hard’).