To Protect The Public Purse Ghanaian Politicians Standing In Presidential & Parliamentary Elections & Their Spouses Must Publicly Publish Their Assets

The unfortunate example of President Mills - an honest and decent gentleman held hostage in the Osu Castle by ruthless and amoral self-seekers -   is proof positive that as long as we have an opaque and byzantine  system,  no matter how honest the President of the Republic of Ghana is  personally, high-level corruption will persist and  continue to rob our nation of its future.


And if that opaque system remains in place, high-level  corruption will continue to impoverish the most vulnerable of our people too,     as sure as day follows night -  regardless of who happens to be in power at any given point in time in our history.


Who would have thought, dear reader,  that with a man of integrity such as President Mills at the helm,  and an honest and principled gentleman in the person of Dr. Kwabena Duffuor,  as his minister of finance and economic planning, we would still end up with an administration embroiled in judgement-debt payment-order scandals galore -  such as  Woyomegate and  that of Construction Pioneers?


And as it is commonly  acknowledged,  the processes leading to those payments  were mostly facilitated by some of the Mills regime's "greedy bastards" - to quote former President Rawlings,  the NDC's founder's pithy  description of the regime-crooks surrounding the late President Mills.


Although no mortal being is perfect,  for the sake of argument, let us  assume that all the December 2012 presidential candidates are as honest as it is humanly possible to be.


Let us also  assume, dear reader,  that we can depend on the one  amongst them who emerges victorious in  the December presidential election,    not  to end  up doing  secret deals  with corrupt foreign oil company executives to the detriment of our nation, when he  becomes  Ghana's president.


Will that   mean in practice, dear reader,  that  what  once occurred during the tenure of a previous Ghanaian president, will not recur  during the tenure of the next president - and  we can all therefore rest assured that no   private Ghanaian citizens, unable to  pay even a pesewa upfront,  will ever be in a  position   to end up owning   part of Ghana's patrimony - stakes in oil blocks in our  offshore oilfields -    that will indeed dwarf the totality of  the value of judgment-debt payment orders paid thus far:   as sweat equity?


Alas, the fact of the matter, sadly, is that whiles we can rely on each of  the presidential candidates  to continue being honest individually,   whichever of them wins the presidential election,   we cannot however be so   sure that sundry lobbyists and self-seeking business tycoons   will not quickly end up corrupting  those officials around that next president of Ghana - as they seek direct access to him through them.


Whichever political party's candidate  wins the presidential elections in December, with     temptation dangled in front of their noses daily, those surrounding that  next president of Ghana may very well  eventually come to see their positions as  wealth-creation avenues  par excellence -  enabling  them  transform themselves  into high net worth individuals by stealth.


Perhaps it is then, dear reader,  that the   business of laundering   the contents of the big   brown envelopes  regularly received by such officials from lobbyists and sundry tycoons -   through   the agency of the clever  men and women who specialise in fronting for  presidential aides and appointees,  using  special purpose offshore entities - will become  a fine art for them: completely destroying  any sense of  idealism that might have inspired  them to enter politics, in the first place.


It is the same phenomenon that was  responsible for  Woyomegate -   that egregious  example of high-level corruption  at the very heart of  the National Democratic Congress administration of the late President Mills.


It is also the selfsame reason why  we were once confronted with that  extraordinary example of  white collar crime never once seen before in the annals of Ghana's history -    the purported sale of  the Volta Aluminum Company Limited  (VALCO) to a non-existent company, International Aluminum Partners, which  occurred during the tenure of  the New Patriotic Party regime that was  in power between  January 2001 and  January 2009.


They it was,  dear reader, who were tasked by the powers that be at the time, to inveigle VALE and Norske Hydro into agreeing to a joint-venture  partnership deal -  specifically  designed to enable the powerful and greedy rogues in that regime to get away with asset-stripping  VALCO with perfect legal covering.


The audacity of their fraud only came to light,   when both companies strenuously denied ever agreeing to purchase  VALCO,  and vehemently denied forming a joint-venture partnership known as International Aluminium Partners (IAP) for the purpose.


Incidentally, that outrageous and gargantuan fraud, the sale and purchase agreement for VALCO,   was actually railroaded through Parliament  on the say-so of the well-connected crooks at the time,  who did business deals for the top people of that era,  and  basked in glorious  sunshine during the  halcyon  days of  the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co.


Alas, today,  in a nation whose people are famous for their short memories, and  in which many ordinary people constantly delude themselves into thinking that their living standards will improve dramatically overnight,  were they to  turf out a serving regime and vote a new party into office,  the party  those greedy and canny  hypocrites of the past belong to,  the New Patriotic Party, is actually on the cusp of returning to power again. Amazing.


One wonders what the vociferous and self-righteous Hon. Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, now the Minority Leader in Parliament -  and at the time the Majority Leader in Parliament -   has to say in his defence today for masterminding the passage in Parliament of that fraudulent document. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem o.


Clearly, what that will result in,  is that they will never  be prosecuted for that gigantic fraud against Mother Ghana that that sale and purchase agreement for the divestiture of VALCO represents. Pity.


The truth of the matter, dear reader, is that the fight against high-level corruption in Ghana will never make any  headway, if we continue to elect candidates for the presidency and parliament - without first  making it a legal requirement  that they   publicly publish the assets of both themselves and their spouses,  well before polling day,  and immediately after exiting from office.


We must also ensure  that all those they subsequently appoint to positions in the public sector,  when they win power, do same too before assuming office - and immediately after exiting office.


(Then there is of course  the  murky world of financing the activities  of political parties and the politicians who make up the inner core of their membership, to deal with. But that is  a whole article in itself, dear reader  - and  a  digression in this instance. So back to topic.)


For the sake of Mother Ghana, and to protect the public purse,  politicians standing in presidential and   parliamentary elections in Ghana - and their spouses -  must be legally required to publicly publish their assets. A word to the wise...


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Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com