Recent news that some government functionaries went to the Ivory Coast in an air force plane, just to watch the football match between Ghana and the D.R. Congo, appears to have come as a great surprise and disappointment to most Ghanaians – many of whom apparently thought that the imperious and profligate ways of the past had disappeared with the departure of the Kufuor regime.
Perhaps Messrs. Alex Segbefia and Co. would have saved themselves and the regime they are members of, considerable embarrassment, if they had opted to charter a private plane – rather than looked to a private company to sponsor a trip to Abidjan on an air force plane: just to watch a football match.
Perception, they say, is all, in politics. If the new regime is to maintain the confidence of ordinary Ghanaians, it is crucial that President Mills reminds all his appointees, that they must not behave as if Ghanaians are a conquered people – and that our national assets (including aircraft of the air force) are not spoils of war to be toyed with by government officials who wish to lead sybaritic lifestyles at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer. Junketing at public expense by government officials ought to be a thing of the past.
If our air force planes are going to crisscross the skies of West Africa at taxpayers’ expense, let them rather carry our ministers for trade and industry and delegations of Ghanaian manufacturers and businesspeople to find markets for our industries. Rather than seeking to lead the life of Riley at taxpayers’ expense, let our new leaders learn to leverage the abiding and considerable goodwill that exists for Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah across Africa, to expand the footprint of corporate Ghana all over the continent.
If they are clever enough to negotiate bilateral free-trade deals with our sister countries individually (whiles we wait, for example, for the ponderous Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to become a practical and down-to-earth idea, which actually benefits grassroots people materially), business delegations can then travel on our air force planes to attend trade fairs organized by our diplomatic missions up and down the continent to promote the products of Ghanaian industry: and create jobs for ordinary people, that way.
The members of the new National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime must never forget what led to their party being voted out of power in December 2000. Have some of them forgotten so soon that one of the major factors in their defeat, then, was the widespread public perception that the NDC had become arrogant, corrupt and hard-of-hearing?
Those in the new NDC administration who think that Ghanaians will put up with high government officials acting as if they were Arabian potentates for whom taxpayers’ properties and money are synonymous with personal wealth: the use of which they are accountable to no one for, had better revise their notes quickly – if they want their party to remain in power after 2012. It was that negative attitude that characterized the Kufuor administration, which lost the New Patriotic Party the December 2008 presidential election.
After our painful experience in the recent past when taxpayers’ money regularly vanished down the financial equivalent of celestial black-holes (known as “Golden Jubilee House” and “National Security”), no politicians in this country can be allowed to have direct access to our national treasury to play fast and lose with again. It costs money to fuel air force airplanes – and they must be used for productive purposes that benefit our nation only.
Since we are told that that particular trip to the Ivory Coast was “sponsored” by a private company, the public must be told which company sponsored the trip, and why – as that cannot possibly be a state secret in an era of transparency.
It is precisely such “sponsorship” that breeds corruption in the area of public procurement. Obviously the sponsor is not Father Christmas – and will definitely want the favour returned somehow: especially as it is saving the blushes of a new regime that condemns its predecessor’s profligacy and accuses it of being corrupt.
Will we eventually come to discover, that like the infamous “phantom-farmer” wheeled out to save the blushes of the previous regime (when there was controversy over public funds being used to improve security at the former president’s principal private residence at Airport West), no such “sponsor” actually exists, in reality, one wonders?
Well, if it turns out that we were fed a pack of lies (as is usual with some members of our political class), and that no such “sponsor” does exist, then all those who went on that trip just to watch a football match, must be surcharged – and made to pay the air force the going rate for return trips by commercial aircraft to Abidjan from Accra. In any case our air force planes are not meant to be at the disposal of government officials just to have fun with. Surely, the era of freebies is over, is it not, dear reader? Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo!!
Some of us recall newspaper reports that the previous NDC regime under President Rawlings, had apparently become so generous with public money, that it was said to have left office in January 2001, with zillions of old cedis in unpaid telephone bills at the Osu Castle – and that throughout its tenure scores of party hangers-on were being put up in state properties: who had no right to be in those state properties.
If he wants to leave a good legacy when he finally leaves office, then President Mills must make sure that the bad old NDC ways don’t return. His party will definitely not be returned to power in 2012 if those unethical and shameful practices of the past are allowed to reappear in our national life, at any point, during his tenure.
President Mills must make it absolutely clear to all his appointees that he will not tolerate them abusing their positions in any way – and that he expects all of them to always be frugal with public money, as well as be humble at all times, in their interactions with the ordinary people of Ghana: whom he appointed them to office to serve, not lord over.
Above all, he must work hard to ensure that by the time his tenure is over, all public officials in Ghana, from the president down to the last district chief executive (and their spouses), are required by law, to publicly publish their assets – both upon entering office and at the end of their tenure in office.
That will be his greatest legacy – for, it will be of tremendous help in the fight against corruption in our public life. As a people, our abiding problem, from the very beginning of our independence, to date, has been the fact that we have not been blessed with very honest leaders.
President Mills must seize the historic opportunity Providence has provided him with, and strive to leave a legacy as one of the most honest leaders Ghana has ever had, thus far (in addition to the great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah), in its 52-year history. The added bonus for him is that such a reputation will make him unassailable in Ghanaian politics – and assure him of a second term in office as president. A word to the wise…
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