Now that Martin Amidu has raised the honest-stewardship bar for Ghanaian
politicians, in protecting the national interest at all material
times, and being non-partisan in fighting corruption, we must not allow
any group of politicians to ride to power, merely on the back of a
tide of public disenchantment with a serving regime - without them
showing and proving beyond all reasonable doubt, that indeed they
do truly merit the people's mandate. Otherwise, why change?
Yes, there has been a great deal of disenchantment with President Mills'
leadership style, and speculation that he is not in charge of his own regime.
Indeed, many are those who believe that some of the people around the
president are arrogating powers to themselves that are ultra vires and
unconstitutional.
As an example, one needs look no further, than the most recent example -
the weasel words of Kokou Anyidoho's confession that President Mills had
nothing to do with the public 'dismissal' of the Ashanti regional director
of the Electricity Company of Ghana.
The fact that that serial-bungler is still at post, despite this being
the umpteenth PR debacle he has been involved in, speaks volumes about Mills'
leadership style.
And it settles that particular matter finally - so we can all
say with a degree of confidence that President Mills is not really in
charge of his own regime, in that sense. That is why the people whose PR genius
unfairly destroyed his hard-working regime's image in the eyes of ordinary
Ghanaians, still cling to their cushy sinecures at the Osu Castle. Pity.
In the same vein, if anyone doubted the total unsuitability of a still
un-reformed and unrepentant New Patriotic Party (NPP), being
allowed to return to power again, they must look no further than the
NPP's leading-lights' responses to the various acts of omission and commission,
committed by errant members of the Mills administration.
However much we may be disenchanted with Mills' NDC regime, it
does not follow, a priori, that we are going to welcome a return of yet
another NPP regime with open arms. Those knee-jerk musical-chairs-style
regime-change days are gone for good - thank goodness.
There are many questions that those sections of the
Ghanaian media, which are underpinned by ethical journalism, and
take their watchdog role in Ghanaian society seriously, ought to be
asking and demanding answers to, from Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP.
Such close scrutiny will ensure that the corruption we saw during the
Kufuor-era does not return with the advent of any new NPP regime led by
Nana Akufo-Addo.
Ghana cannot afford another bout of - in the words of one of
its sternest, independent-minded and patriotic critics I know
- "the milking dry of Ghana, in yet another golden
age of business, for that mostly-greedy, ruthless and selfish
lot". Ouch.
What, for example, will Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP do,
about the leading cause of high-level corruption in Ghana - the continual
refusal of our political class, to accept that publicly
publishing the assets of the president and those he appoints to his government,
as well as their spouses - immediately before assuming office, and immediately
after their tenure - is a convention that must quickly be established in
our nation's politics, if the fight against high-level corruption is to
succeed?
Clearly, the deafening silence from Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP on
this matter, can only mean that they are accepting of the totally
unacceptable status quo.
That, clearly, is not a very good sign, in an oil-rich Ghana
- from a political party with a murky honest-stewardship past, and
at the doorstep of which those inimical oil production agreements Ghana entered
into, much to its detriment, can squarely be laid.
As I have always said, President Kufuor is the greediest, most
dishonest and corrupt individual ever elected to rule Ghana, thus far,
since the overthrow of President Nkrumah in February 1966.
(Incidentally, I am still waiting for Mr. Kufuor to sue me for
regularly saying that about him - whereupon he will promptly
realise that his brilliant friend Kweku Baako, is not the only
journalist in Ghana, who possesses secret and highly sensitive documents,
as well as digital forms of incontrovertible evidence, proving
those damning assertions. But I digress.)
Amidst the public outrage about the sale of state lands to politicians and
their cronies, under the so-called Accra Re-Development Plan, there has neither
been a whimper of condemnation of that iniquitous self-serving policy
initiative, nor an emphatic declaration of ending the immorality of
what is merely a convenient legal-cloak designed to hide the redistribution of
what belongs to all Ghanaians, to a well-connected, powerful
and greedy few.
With Jake Obestebi-Lamptey as its chairperson, and President Kufuor as its
Godfather, perhaps it will be business as usual on that front too, one wonders?
Alas, dear reader, clearly, there is also nothing thus far, in
their many campaign rally speeches and endless press conferences,
to indicate that there will not be a repetition of the incidence
of fraud and immorality, seen during the golden age of business for
the perfidious Kufuor & Co.
The question then is, why has anyone not yet heard a direct assurance
from either Nana Akufo-Addo or those silver-tongued dissemblers known collectively as the "NPP Communications Team", that the
outrageous Kufuor-era unspeakable frauds committed against Ghanaians,
will not be repeated when they return to power? Just saying Woyomegate will not
occur in an NPP regime, is not enough.
An egregious example of those aforementioned frauds, was the
railroading through Parliament - under the present Minority Leader in
Parliament, the Hon. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bosu's active leadership - of
the sale and purchase agreement for the Volta Aluminium Company
Limited (VALCO).
That purported sale of VALCO, was to a so-called
International Aluminium Partners (IAP), a non-existent entity, said
to be a joint-venture partnership between VALE of Brazil and Norske-Hydro of
Norway - both of whom yet strenuously denied ever agreeing to purchase
VALCO.
And we are told that vital documents said to be missing, were last known to have been in the possession of the late Hon. Baah-Wiredu - pure slander against an honest man now deceased and unable to defend his honour. Amazing.
The question is, how do we know that such wheezes will not be repeated in an
NPP regime, under Nana Akufo-Addo's leadership - a gentleman whose
gargantuan family tree is crowned by a tribal Chieftain and branch
members a zillion times more sophisticated than that of President
Kufuor's? Heaven help us.
In all their many references to the activities of the powerful crooks,
who lurk in the shadows in the corridors of power, in the Mills
administration, we are yet to hear what guarantees, if any, Nana
Akufo-Addo and the NPP are prepared to give Ghanaians that similar
crimes, such as high-level insider-dealing and the exploitation of
insider-information for private gain, will not occur in an
NPP regime under Nana Akufo-Addo, too.
There has also been a great deal of noise about the so-called "social
interventions" initiated by the Kufuor regime - most of which did
not have a sustainable funding source. But they were launched nonetheless to
court cheap popularity for his regime.
That is not the sort of 'achievement' likely to impress discerning minds
today, is it? The curing of that crippling budgetary
equivalent of a viral illness, by the Mills regime, one
ought to note, is nothing short of miraculous.
Yet, instead of acknowledging the hard work involved in resuscitating
the national economy that Kufuor & Co. had brought to its
knees, by the end of their regime's tenure, Dr. Bawumia -
apparently the NPP's last-word in economics - has chosen to bury
his head in the sand, and more or less implies, as he
goes around the country in Nana Akufo-Addo's company, that nothing much
has been done thus far, in the economic sphere, by the
present government. Incredible.
Is that a sign of sincere and responsible leadership - something that
Ghana desperately needs today, in an age of austerity?
Given the obvious lack of a clear sustainable source of funding for Nana
Akufo-Addo's free high school educational policy, and the astonishing and
brazen decision to fund "Zongo development" from the
consolidated fund (imagine that - how reckless and irresponsible can one get, I
ask, dear reader?), how are we to know that a developmental strategy, which is
the economic equivalent of starting to build a house with no income and only a fraction
of its cost saved up - and hoping that the building will somehow be completed
on a wing-and-a-prayer basis - will not also become a regular
feature of a Nana Akufo-Addo administration?
What are we also to conclude then, when instead of calling for a reform of
the outrageous, pigs-snouts-in-the-trough compensation packages, which are
paid to members of the boards of state-owned entities, for example, Nana Akufo-Addo seems to favour a business-as-usual approach?
Nana Akufo-Addo merely signals instead that he will use that area of our national life that desperately needs reforming as a form of
pork-barrel political leverage, to keep those delegates who elected
him to be his party's candidate for the presidential election in check, and
prevent them from rocking the boat (presumably before and after the December
elections) - by reminding them that there are many posts and
appointments to public-sector entity boards, within the gift of a serving
president.
No sign there of any reform agenda too, alas, dear reader,
is there? Well, if it is going to be business as usual there too, then
why should we allow members of what many independent-minded and patriotic
Ghanaians say was the most corrupt regime ever elected to rule Ghana,
since independence, to be returned to power again, after the December
polls, I ask?
Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP need to do better than they have done to date, to convince those in Ghana who can think, and also always take into account the
words, deeds and misdeeds of politicians. To be credible, they must
assure and convince such Ghanaians that they will carry out
a root-and-branch reform, of a corrupt and cancerous system. And
roll out a detailed plan for same too. Nothing short will do.
That is the only way to proceed, if they want to win over the
sceptical and discerning Ghanaians, whose independent-mindedness
and sense of patriotism underpins their passionate love for
Mother Ghana - the floating-voters whose crucial swing-votes now
decide who becomes Ghana's president.
President Mills and Vice-President Mahama might have failed us as leaders -
but that should not mean that Ghanaians must automatically hand power to the
NPP, on a silver platter. That no longer makes sense in
the oil-rich Ghana of today.
As things currently stand, virtually nothing Nana Akufo-Addo and the
NPP have said or done thus far, assures independent-minded
patriots in our country, that the NPP is deserving of being
returned to power again to rule Ghana.
The good people of Ghana must not be beguiled by the sugar-coated words
they hear from them, during stops made in their localities,
by the NPP's leaders' in their "restore hope"
campaign trips across Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually
works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
