As we await the release of the report of the enquiry conducted into the scandal involving Alhaji Munkata, by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), all sorts of rumours about what it contains, have already started to percolate through the wall of secrecy built around it.
A particularly interesting rumour, claims that some of those in the Mills administration, who it is alleged were economical with the truth about exactly who bore the cost of the trip to Abidjan, which was undertaken by Alhaji Munkata and Co in an air force plane earlier this year, are pulling strings to ensure that there is a cover-up of sorts in the affair.
C!Hopefully, the president will not let those clever individuals blindside him under any circumstances – as his authority, despite all the powers the constitution gives him, ultimately rests upon his perceived moral uprightness: in a nation whose political class is widely perceived by the general public to be full of greedy liars and amoral individuals.
If there is any attempt at a cover up at any level, the president will wake up to discover that a minor scandal involving the indiscretions of a callow youth, who did not know where the dividing line between government expenditure and his personal household’s shopping bills was, has been transformed into a full-blown cover-up scandal of Watergate proportions, called the “Alhaji Munkata girlfriend-diapergate cover-up scandal."
The scandal questions his regime’s commitment to good governance principles and his own sincerity as a reforming politician.
Clearly, if the report says anywhere in it (as it is rumoured to), that there was immoral conduct on Alhaji Munkata’s part, in that scandal, it will obviously make it well nigh impossible for the president to ask him to return to his position as minister for youth and sports.
That stinging criticism of his character, if true, does offer the Mills administration the opportunity to finally rid itself of a man, who sadly, so clearly does not have the moral fibre to serve as a minister in it – if the government is truly committed to running a transparent system, that is.
Using government funds to pay for his girlfriend to travel to Germany, and to pay for his household expenses, are not mere indiscretions – they amount to an abuse of office and stealing public funds: both serious crimes that ought to be prosecuted.
It is such a pity that Alhaji Munkata did not do the decent thing when the scandal first broke – and resign from his position of his own accord.
Trying to explain things away with those mealy-mouthed excuses he gave initially, made him come across as someone who was not man enough to take full responsibility for his actions, and certainly did little to paint a positive picture of his character.
If he had chosen to apologise to the president, and the nation, for letting everyone in Ghana down, he might have laid the basis for eventually salvaging his reputation somewhat.
That would have started the process of rehabilitating his dented public image – and enabled him to move on with the rest of his life with some dignity.
It is still not too late to do so – and one hopes that he will render an apology to the president and the nation in due course: whatever the outcome of the BNI investigation.
If there is anything in the BNI’s report that leads one to conclude that some government spokespersons did indeed prevaricate, in as far as the issue of whom exactly it was that bore the cost of the flight to Abidjan in that air force plane, then they too must do the decent thing and resign their positions – as they too would be guilty of conduct unbecoming of members of a regime that says it wants to be a transparent administration.
They must be prepared to sacrifice their positions in the interest of the nation and their party – if the Mills administration and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) want to be taken seriously about their commitment to reforming a corrupt system: by underpinning the new regime with an ethos of transparency.
This is the Mills administration’s litmus test – and how the president reacts to the BNI’s report on the scandal involving Alhaji Munkata will define his regime for the rest of its tenure.
The government will immediately lose its moral authority if it tries to cover up any aspect of this scandal.
Furthermore, if there are criminal implications in any aspect of that scandal and it does not result in prosecution of all those who are culpable, just how will the government be able to justify the double standards that not prosecuting those individuals would represent?
More so, when the general public is demanding that it deals with all those who abused their positions whiles in office, during the tenure of the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime, by prosecuting them?
And the Mills regime would have lost the battle for occupying the high moral ground in Ghanaian politics, even before it has started – and that would be a real pity for our nation: and all those who placed such high hopes in President Mills.
The president must therefore ensure that there is no cover-up under any circumstances in this matter – lest it turns into a full-blown cover-up scandal christened the “Alhaji Munkata girlfriend-diapergate cover-up scandal.”
Post Script: The report of the BNI investigation was released shortly after this piece was written. One commends the president for acting to uncover the veracity or otherwise of the allegations against Alhaji Munkata, the former minister for youth and sports.
However, I can safely predict that not many people (including me) will believe that that BNI report is not a cover-up of sorts – and that it will come back to haunt all those who ensured that this was the eventual outcome the probe arrived at: in order to save their own skins.
Incidentally, one should also commend Alhaji Munkata, for resigning and finally apologizing for his actions – but like many things to do with politicians, such as the flat denial during the NPP’s tenure by the former minister for presidential affairs, Mr. Kwadjo Mpianin, that he ever telephoned Mr. Kofi Asante (the then executive secretary of the Energy Commission) to ask him to buy a four-wheel drive luxury vehicle with a fridge in it for the Mamponghene (who was a board member of the Energy Commission at the time); those clever individuals who think that they have now finally crucified the accountant whose allegations sparked off the BNI probe, will find that it is he, rather than them, who will have the last laugh in the end.
One hopes for their sake that they will not soon be contending with a full-blown Alhaji Munkata girlfriend-diapergagte cover-up scandal.
They will then discover, when their perfidy is finally revealed to the world, that Ghana is no longer a nation in which wrong-doing by politicians, can be hidden from the general public for long.
I simply do not believe that the accountant made up those allegations – certainly not the one to do with the US$10,000 money for the Abidjan airport landing fees.
Saying that there is no basis for that particular allegation is too convenient an outcome for those who would have had to resign from the government had the probe confirmed that it was indeed true that Alhaji Munkata did in fact collect that sum of money from the ministry, ostensibly to pay for the air force plane’s landing fees at Abidjan airport.
I am tempted to agree with those who say that it would appear that a number of faceless individuals in the Osu Castle, have conspired to make the accountant a sacrificial lamp – slaughtered callously to enable them save their own positions in the government: a most dishonorable and cowardly thing to do (if I may add).
The truth about that US$10,000 will certainly come out one day, as sure as day follows night – their shenanigans notwithstanding: and they can mark that on their office walls in the Osu Castle, our seat of government. Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: asem ebaba debi ankasa!
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