President John Mahama
Ghana, a well-endowed country, has been brought to its knees and has been reduced to borrowing and begging from foreign creditors and donors to finance even its most mundane development needs. Corruption is what has brought this shame upon itself.
Corruption holds back economic growth, increases cost of doing business, reduces revenue to the state, leads to capital flight and inflates the cost of running government. It results in a loss of legitimacy and respect for legally-constituted authority.
Corruption demoralizes honest people and fills them with uncertainty, mistrust and fear. It stifles initiative and creativity and dampens motivation. It undermines the merit system of rewards, appointments and success and it encourages mediocrity, laziness and incompetence. (The NPPs 2016 Manifesto, CHANGE, An Agenda for Jobs).
Corruption has been with society perhaps from the day societies came into being. Human beings by nature, would want to appropriate to themselves what belongs to all. It is in line with this nature of humanity that society puts in place rules and regulations to regulate the conduct of individuals and group of individuals. Punitive measures are also put in place for people who violate what society has collectively put in place for the collective good of all. Rick Stapenhurst and Sahr Kpundeh have defined corruption as ‘the abuse of power, most often for personal gain or for the benefit of a group to which one owes allegiance. It can be motivated by greed, by the desire to retain or increase one’s power, or, perversely enough, by the belief in a supposed greater good.
Corruption has existed in our society since its individual creations, but it has been abhorred. That is why in the Akan parlance, it is called k3t3 ase hye. Literally, corruption is not operated in the open. If one offering bribe has to put it under the mat of the recipient, as it were, then both the giver and the recipient accept that the act is not socially acceptable. It is difficult ‘to find the mind’s construction in the face’, as it were, so an act of corruption can only be found after the act has taken place. It is extremely difficult to know the thinking of an individual or group of individuals in that direction until the act has taken place.
That is why every society, from the simple to the complex, has put in place laws to deal with deviants in societies who will violate the laws for their selfish gains. There will always be corrupt people as long as society is made up of human beings; that is not the most important issue in my opinion. What is worrying is the fact that institutions and agencies that the society itself has put in place to deal with such social aberrations and criminal actions have failed or refused to apply the laws purposely put in place to deal with such issues as corruption.
Societies such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China and the rest were once citadels of corruption, but their leaders at certain age and time decided to deal with the canker in its most virulent forms, but above all, the leadership leading by verifiable examples. This brings me back to President Mahama’s pledge in Tamale in 2012 to fight corruption through leadership by examples as against his major opponent, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo’s statement that ‘I am not corrupt, I have never been corrupt and I will never be corrupt’ assurance that has never been contracted. In Singapore for example, we are told that the leadership divested themselves of any financial and commercial ties, demonstrated a strong work ethic by coming to work earlier and practicing more meticulous work habits than their subordinates, took no unnecessary official trips at taxpayers’ expense or otherwise abused their office, and adopted a policy of zero tolerance for corruption among others.
Over the past eight years of the NDC, numerous cases of real corruption ranging from payments of huge sums of monies to cronies and associates of President Mahama for no work done for this country had occurred. There are also the cases of procurement improprieties where contract sums have been unreasonably inflated for the benefit of the contractors and the cronies and associates of Mahama. Cases of SADA which had seen over GH¢200 million of the tax payers’ monies virtually burnt, Gyeeda has squandered over GH¢100million for no benefit to the state, an unknown company by name Isofoton was paid USD1.2 million for no job done for this country.
Rlg, CP, Subah have all been given the tax payers’ monies for jobs which were neither done or done to meet the value of the monies paid them. This nation spent close to USD20 million on Brazil World Cup participation; a Commission was put in place to look into the matter and the report are either under the table of the President who set up the Commission or it is gathering dust on the shelves at the Presidency. The procurement of the Ameri and other barges at costs far higher than what the international market offers, have become issues of national interest and concern.
The most pungent of all these acts of corruption and waste of public funds is the case of Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome who boldly walked to the offices of the Attorney-General and made a claim of the state owing him millions of Ghana Cedis. Even though the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court has described the process and the action of payments to Woyome as an exercise of Create, Loot and Share’ and ordered Woyome to refund the money, the Mahama administration has refused to collect the money from Woyome, two years after the decision of the court.
A certain hope was instilled in Ghanaians in recent times to the effect that the money was going to be paid, and that the Attorney-General was on the heels of Woyome to ensure the payment of the money. The Attorney-General has traveled to the Supreme Court and Woyome was supposed to appear before the court in a few days from today to answer some questions just to be told that the Attorney-General has shown no further interest to appear before the court to question Woyome so that we can be assured of the retrieval of the money.
This is the highest connivance of a sitting President in the perpetration of corruption in the annals of the nation’s history in as far as corruption is concerned. Certainly, any critical observer of the Woyome case can appreciate the efforts of the current Attorney-General to retrieve our money from the crookish Woyome in this whole affair. What has necessitated her U-turn at this point? What kinds of pressure have been put on her to take this decision and from which quarters?
It is obvious that should Woyome appear before the Supreme Court to be quizzed about the money, how he disbursed it, which investments were made with the money, which people benefitted from the monies directly or indirectly, surely names are going to be mentioned and politicians campaigning to be elected into office on December 7, 2016, surely not excluding the President, may be mentioned. The implications for such exposures for the chance of the beneficiaries of the stolen funds are very much well obvious to all of us.
Is that therefore the reason for the Attorney-General to backtrack on the issue, the interest of Ghanaians notwithstanding? How on earth should any leader of this very proud country, in the midst of the financial crisis confronting us, the debt overhung staring in the faces of the younger and unborn generations, preside over such open thievery with open connivance of public officials and still have the guts to tell us to vote for him for another four years? It is either Mahama has no sense of shame, bereft of integrity, sees corruption as normal in the scheme of things or he simply does not respect the people of this country. No sane President will spite our faces and still ask us to allow him to continue to mismanage our resources at our peril. I SIMPLY CANT THINK FAR. MAHAMA TWA SO.
Three tots, Daavi.
Kwesi Biney