The astonishing details of the retirement packages put together to ensure that a number of recently-retired high-ranking public officials, including members of the last parliament and our former president, Mr. Kufuor, continue to live “dignified” lives, seems to have taken many ordinary Ghanaians by surprise.
Not a few of such Ghanaians have been irked by the idea that in addition to funding a regular pension (equivalent to the monthly salary and allowances he enjoyed as president), they are also expected to foot the bill for the construction of two posh houses for the former president.
On top of all that Ghana’s hard-pressed taxpayers are also expected to pay for the domestic staff to man those two posh houses for Mr. Kufuor; pay for six chauffeur-driven luxury cars every four years, and also provide him with US$1 million as seed money to set up a foundation – to ease the withdrawal pangs of his removal from the limelight and to enable him keep up with the Joneses amongst the world’s ex-heads of state (who have foundations doing good around the globe, such as former US President Jimmy Carter).
Naturally, being the archetypal believer in inherited privilege (which is the greatest enemy of a meritocracy, incidentally), and a master of the arcane arts and science of nepotism, he expects to be allowed to leave all that state-funded largesse to his next of kin, when he passes away – so that they too can continue to live in the style to which they have all become accustomed. Incredible!
For those of us with long memories, it makes the disappointment we felt in 2001, when we learnt of the astronomical cost of renovating Australia House (on which millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money was lavished), pale into insignificance. Readers will recall that it had been earmarked as the retirement home of the hero of 4th June 1979, Flt. Lt. Rawlings – so that he too, presumably, could continue to live a “dignified” life as a former president of Ghana.
In the event, as we all know, the new Kufuor administration that took over power from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime led by Flt. Lt. Rawlings in 2001, did not oblige – and the former president had to move into the government property in Ridge, which had housed his family whiles he was serving as Ghana’s president (and lived alone in the equivalent of a bachelor’s pad at the seat of government, the Osu Castle).
That relatively modest government property at Ridge is where he and his family have lived; thus far, ever since he left office in 2001 – and clearly, neither has it affected his “dignified” status as a former president of Ghana, nor cramped his style, in the slightest. There is also a similar adjacent house allocated to him that serves as his office – and clearly both simple colonial-era buildings have been adequate for him.
Not having a million-dollar state-funded charitable foundation has not killed Flt. Lt. Rawlings yet, from the pangs of leaving the limelight in 2001 – so Mr. Kufuor and all our future former presidents will either have to look for their own million-dollar seed money to set up foundations, or follow Ft. Lt. Rawlings’ example and do without one. Period.
Whiles in power, Mr. Kufuor and those in his inner circle famously were wont to accuse those who criticized the spendthrift nature of some members of his regime, as being envious individuals – and true to form, they and their elitist supporters will doubtless accuse those now expressing their outrage at his retirement package, as envious and lazy individuals, in private.
I heard about details of those astonishing retirement packages that the previous parliament had approved on a car radio tuned to Radio Gold FM’s popular “Alhaji and Alhaji” Saturday morning current affairs programme broadcast on 17th January, 2009.
The vehicle I was in, was temporarily parked on the hard-shoulder of the Ring Road Central, directly opposite the railway guard’s little hut just before the railway crossing – a most insalubrious part of our nation’s capital that most of those who zip past in their air-conditioned cars hardly ever take notice of.
We were parked right beside a most appalling example of the filth that our nation was slowly being engulfed by (and precious little was done about) throughout Mr. Kufuor’s tenure – a large open drain that runs parallel to part of the Neoplan Station: where a dear blood-relation’s ever-faithful driver, Walter, had gone to collect a parcel she had sent from Kumasi.
That ghastly receptacle of filth and the unsanitary conditions prevailing in the area generally, illustrate perfectly, the abject failure of our post-Nkrumah leaders to improve the quality of life of ordinary people, over the years. Only God and the zillion blue-bottle flies that it attracts know what horrendous germs that most unhygienic of open drains harbours.
I sat stunned watching the scene unfolding before my eyes across the drain with much sadness: as bucketful after bucketful of dirty water was emptied into the plastic bag-filled drain, by one “chop-bar” attendant after the other – and imagined how very quickly those who ate in the establishments they worked for would quickly succumb to a cholera outbreak if ever there was one.
It is a world away from the air-conditioned and sanitized surroundings of our ruling elite, whose state-funded “bubble-of-comfort” makes them occupy themselves with the most incredible inanities, sometimes – whiles the struggling masses who elect them into office suffer indignities on a daily basis: as a direct result of the incompetence of many of their political leaders.
Yet, it is those selfsame suffering masses whose taxes mostly pay for the creature comforts of profligate officialdom in Ghana – as the bulk of our wealthy urban elite are very good at hiding their wealth and dodging taxes due on their assets.
There are many Ghanaians who say that in their view the overly-generous retirement benefits provided for former public office-holders of a heavily-indebted and cash-strapped developing nation, in which most families can barely afford even one decent meal a day, is an outrage.
For such people that obscenity amounts to a conspiracy by some members of our political class to commit a crime against humanity by sanctioning the paying out of such huge sums to those retiring public officials – and definitely ought not to be accepted by the new regime of President Mills: if the ethos that underpins it is the principle that Ghana’s leaders ought to set a good example in society by not making too many demands on the public purse in terms of their perks: and lead modest lives as well as do all they can to save our nation money at all times whiles in office.
It is amazing that members of the previous parliament chose to meet behind closed doors and authorized generous benefits for themselves, including all the three departing parliamentary speakers, as well as the former president and members of his departing regime, too.
The question most ordinary people would like answered, is: rather than constantly scheming to feather their own collective-nest, why do our leaders not simply concentrate on working hard to make our nation truly prosperous – and ensure that all Ghanaian workers too can retire on their meagre salaries (just as many of their nation’s leaders do on their stupendous salaries)?
Why can’t our leaders be creative-minds who can make our nation sufficiently prosperous so as to ensure that during their tenure, for example, all Ghanaian workers who cannot afford to own their own homes can have access to good quality housing at affordable rental rates, no matter which part of our nation they work and live in – and free themselves from Shylock landlords who, to add insult to injury, don’t even declare their rental incomes?
Instead of saddling future generations of Ghanaians with debt by borrowing zillions and frittering away our future oil and natural gas wealth mollycoddling our ruling elite, could we not rather choose to leverage the goodwill Nkrumah generated for us with China and go ahead to establish a special relationship with them for our mutual benefit?
Could we not propose to them, for example, that in exchange for Ghanaian sovereign bonds, our two nations could have joint-ventures between Ghana’s state-owned as well as privately-owned companies and the best-resourced and most ethically-run Chinese state-owned companies to execute various projects in our country?
At a time of a severe global recession, could we not have an economic stimulus plan in which funds (say some US$20 billions!) from China are exchanged for Ghana’s sovereign bonds, to pay for projects such as the building of oil refineries; liquefied gas plants; cocoa processing plants; the growing and milling of rice on a large-scale; funding rural cooperatives to farm say African catfish for local consumption and to export same to South East Asia (and thus help parts of rural Ghana to prosper too)?
Could we also not take advantage of the favourable conditions along our coastline to add renewable energy plants to our nation’s energy-mix, by building tidal-energy plants and wind-power farms?
Is it not possible to take advantage of the hydro-power plant invented by Colonel Kofi Abaka Jackson (who has given that invention to Ghana as a gift), and which harnesses the flow of rivers to produce electricity?
Would such hydro-power plants not make it possible to dispense with building expensive hydro-dams that unfortunately will be unable to produce power when water levels in our dams drop too low – which they invariably will at a time of global climate change: as prolonged dry periods become the norm?
Could we also not fund key infrastructural projects such as building more gas-fired power plants that together with our renewable energy plants will make us a major exporter of power in West Africa – as well as build water desalination plants; bridges; modernize and increase our healthcare facilities nationwide; expand our rail network countrywide; ditto our motorway network?
If we widened the footprint of our fibre-optic network – and made broadband internet access widespread and affordable, as a deliberate policy to create an ICT industry for the younger generation, could we not end up creating yet another growth-pole for our economy: as thousands of those young people set up online businesses?
Has China not made it abundantly clear that it is still willing to provide loans to African nations – despite the credit crunch currently stymieing growth globally as the world tips inexorably into a severe recession?
Could such a partnership between our two nations to fund a multitude of projects here to the tune of some US$20 billions (backed by the sovereign bonds of an African nation with abundant oil and natural gas reserves) not easily be factored into the economic stimulus plans of both Ghana and China – and would it not create jobs and improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians?
If our leaders were creative thinkers would it not be the case, for example, that rather than desperately seeking money that isn’t available in the national treasury today to increase salaries nationwide, our leaders would seek to achieve the same end, by simply abolishing personal income tax in Ghana – and make even less money available for the various respectable-looking white-collar criminals in the system: who siphon huge sums from government coffers?
Would companies in this country not be able to pay their workers well if they were privileged to be located in a nation whose leaders were wise enough to allow companies to pay the world’s lowest corporate tax rates – because the government had been wise enough to set corporate tax at just 9 per cent?
It is sad and instructive that rather than use their energies to think creatively, members of the previous rubber-stamp parliament more or less secretly sat behind closed doors and bent the rules – to allow that outrageous retirement package for so many retiring public office holders including a former president who, if truth be told, was a tribal-supremacist par excellence: who promoted tribalism and divided our nation as no other Ghanaian leader has done before, since we gained our independence.
That some of its parliamentarians now seek to justify that outrage, speaks volumes about the nature of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime that Ghanaians just voted out of office. That party must never be allowed to return to power again, if the elitist mindset and divisive tribal-supremacist worldview of those who dominate it, doesn’t change whiles they are in the political wilderness.
Clearly, it is essential that Ghanaian voters always ponder what motivates their politicians. The question discerning voters (the so-called ”floating voters”), as opposed to the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types, who wear blinkers permanently and are too blind to see what goes on in our country and too thick to think for themselves, need to ask themselves at election time is: precisely what ends do those who pursue power in Ghana seek it for?
Is it to enable them acquire material wealth for themselves, their family clans and their cronies, at the expense of the well-being of our nation and its people – or do they seek power because they have a passionate desire to help create a society in which all Ghanaians, no matter their social status, lead lives of dignity?
Well, if our politicians were wise, rather than seek power to further their personal wealth-creation agendas, they would seek power to promote the common good and improve the quality of life of all the people of Ghana – both the well-off and those who struggle daily to make ends meet: so that ours becomes an equitable society, not one in which huge disparities in wealth exists to threaten the stability of our country.
Let all the members of Ghana’s ruling elite make the creation in our country, of Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, the goal for which they seek political power – and devote the years of their tenure in office to the attainment of that end.
No one in this country would begrudge public officers their cushy sinecures and overly-generous retirement packages, if it was clear to all Ghanaians (at the end of the tenure of office of such public officials) that they had worked assiduously to improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians whiles they were in office.
However, were the present “Baboon-dey-work-monkey-dey-chop” ethos to continue underpinning the politics of our country (and ordinary people’s quality of life continues plummeting in inverse proportion to the dizzying heights to which the net worth of our ruling elite reach whiles in – and out – of office), Ghana’s political class must not be surprised if ordinary people, thoroughly fed up with incompetent and greedy leadership, spontaneously rose up against them one day – and the unfortunate events of 4th June, 1979 were repeated again. A word to the wise…
May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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