Humbug In Ghana's Parliament?

I could not help smiling, when I watched a news item on Metro TV’s 6th July 6, 2009 early evening news programme, in which the former deputy minister of finance, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, was gesticulating animatedly in apparent frustration: and expressing his sense of outrage to the Speaker.

He wondered aloud, just what was happening to Parliament, and said he was not in the least bit surprised that ordinary people no longer respected members of parliament – because an allegation made by a member of parliament from his own side of the house, Mr. P. C. Appiah-Ofori, had been repeated on the floor of the house without any evidence, by a member of the majority side in Parliament, Mr. Twumasi-Appiah: who refused to withdraw the offending statement that had so raised Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei’s ire.

The upshot was that the minority side staged a walkout – and coolly informed Ghanaians (with straight faces) that as a result of Mr. Twumasi-Appiah’s refusal to either substantiate or withdraw the allegation that they had received bribes of US$5,000 each, to facilitate the Vodafone takeover of Ghana Telecom (GT), they would no longer be participating fully in debates in Parliament (in which decisions affecting the welfare of the ordinary people of Ghana are taken, and for which reason they were elected in the first place: and remunerated so handsomely for!).

The question that came immediately to mind – as I listened with astonishment to the humbug of those over-pampered hypocrites who used to work even till dawn, to enable fraudulent bills benefiting the powerful crooks in their regime to be railroaded through Parliament – is best expressed by quoting that pithy phrase in pidgin English from Nigeria that poses the rhetorical question: “Na who cause am?” (whose fault is it?)

Had that genius Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei and his self-righteous colleagues on the minority benches in Parliament, developed a mild case of amnesia perhaps, one wonders – and suddenly forgotten that once upon a time they conspired with that greedy cabal in the presidency (when they were in power), to railroad through Parliament that fraudulent sale and purchase agreement for VALCO to a non-existent entity, grandly named International Aluminum Partners: that two multinational metals conglomerates, Norske Hydro and VALE (which were said to be buying VALCO), vehemently denied ever consenting to append their signatures to?

Who in their right mind would not feel contemptuous of such amoral politicians – prepared to sanction criminality to that degree: merely because it benefited a powerful and influential few to whom they were beholden: and even though it was inimical to our nation’s interests?

How do we know that that eleventh-hour con-job did not inform their tactics in the Vodafone rip-off deal too?

Did those hypocritical apostles of the rule of law, not again do the unimaginable, by completely ignoring the constitutional edict that enjoins all Ghanaians to fight corruption: when they topped their perfidy (after allowing GT to be sold for a song), by passing yet another new law that indemnified all those who struck the Ghana Telecom/Vodafone deal from future prosecution?

Why did they have to pass such an egregious example of a bad and self-serving law if they had nothing to hide? Did they not think that most discerning Ghanaians would come to the conclusion that they were aiding and abetting those engaging in corruption: and to the detriment of our nation? So now that the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, the US$5,000 question is: “Na who cause am?”
Has the sanctimonious Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei now suddenly forgotten that Ghanaians saw some of his colleagues rush to pin down Mr. P.C. Appiah-Ofori in the chamber of Parliament, when he made an attempt to make a statement expressing his opposition to the sale of GT to Vodafone?

The question is: Why were they prepared to physically assault their colleague in an effort to gag him and stop him from making public the reasons for his objection to that one-sided deal?

Was he about to make the same allegation that they are now boycotting the important work of Parliament for – and which they did not want recorded in the Hansard, for posterity to note their perfidy for all time, perchance?

Has Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei forgotten that once upon a time he was actually signing million-dollar cheques drawn in favour of that financial equivalent of a black-hole, known as “National Security” – even when his regime, incredibly (from the standpoint of ethical behaviour), was in its dying days? What those too-clever-by-half members of our political class (such as the “smooth” Dr. Anthony Akoto-Osei and his ilk) fail to understand, is that the people of Ghana cannot all be fooled all the time.

That is why most ordinary people will tell him, were he and his colleagues to ask them, that between the very clever Mr. Kodjo Mpianim and Mr. P. C. Appiah-Ofori, they know exactly whose word to take – precisely because they know which of the two men has a long history of denying most of the things it is alleged he has been involved in.

The bitter truth is that our political class is jam-packed with sophisticated white-collar criminals who are really worse than the notorious Atta Aryee. Do they not know that rooking Ghana silly through the use of opaque offshore special purpose vehicles is no different from what that notorious armed robber used to get up to, in his hey days: when he was carrying out his reign of terror?

My humble advice to Dr. Akoto Osei’s mostly-clueless successors, if they would listen, is that they must get hold of key EU politicians, such as those leading left-wing green members of the Dutch Parliament, who care about Africa, to ask the Dutch equivalent of our economic crimes unit of the Ghana Police Service, to find out the antecedents of Vodafone BV – so as to establish any recent changes in its shareholding and also examine all its bank accounts: to see if that will yield any clues to help get to the bottom of the rumours of impropriety surrounding the sale of GT to Vodafone.

They must also find and talk to some of the left-wing UK MP’s with an interest in Africa, and ask them to contact the Metropolitan Police team which collaborated with the Kenyan Police to unravel a number of multi-million pound sterling deals involving some members of Kenya’s ruling elite.

That might also be useful in helping them crack any similar secret deals in the privatization of GT. They must also look for some of the left-wing members of the EU Parliament (who also care about, and want to stop, corrupt practices in Africa, by powerful Western multinationals) to get the relevant EU commissioner to help them in the task of unraveling the EU angle – regarding the purchase of GT by Vodafone PLC using Vodafone BV as a legal front.

That is the best way of finding out, if it was the case, for example, that having learnt from its Kenyan experience, Vodafone elected to cover its tracks, and circumvent possible future charges of corruption, through that special purpose vehicle. They must also contact leading EU transparency activist groups such as Global Witness for help in that regard too.

As for Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei himself, I wonder if he is aware of the fact that there are those, who say that they have no doubt that he will probably end up before the Fast Track High Courts, in due course.

His critics also say, that he epitomizes those smart-dealers who created the culture of dog-eat-dog selfishness, which we saw during their years in power: when greed amongst our ruling elite reached its apogee – and is described by them as someone who is: lethal; incredibly smooth; apparently respectable; super-ruthless; and, like all his philandering Akan tribal-supremacist pals, world-class at speaking with a forked-tongue.

He must be careful that the chickens do not come to roost in his own backyard, too, soon. Hmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: enti yewieye paa enei? Asem kesie ebaba debi ankasa!