On World Anti-Corruption Day, last year, which fell on 9th December, 2015, Mr. Bob Collymore, who heads East Africa's largest and most successful private-sector company, and the region's biggest taxpayer, Safaricom, publicly published his assets.
Collymore, who is a board member of the United Nations Global Compact, was setting an example to Kenya's ruling elites. It led to the CEO of the Kenya Commercial Bank Group, Joshua Oigara, and Kenya's Chief Justice, Willy Mutunga, promising to also publicly declare their assets.
Collymore apparently has no assets in Kenya, apart from shares in Safaricom worth US$180,000. He also has shares in Vodafone Plc of the UK valued at US$872,000. His cash balances in local banks in Kenya amounted to US$203,000, and his cash balances in UK banks amounted to US$935,000.
He owns a house in the UK worth US$530,000. He declared dividend and interest income of US$5,800 over the previous 12 months and earned an annual salary of US$1.07 million. He has a net worth of US$2.72 million.
It would make a huge difference in the fight against high-level corruption in Ghana, if the leaders of Corporate Ghana could also lead a private-sector good governance initiative - which sees captains of industry and commerce in Ghana following Safaricom's Bob Collymore's shining example.
That would make it harder for the corrupt members of our political class to continue hiding behind the present opaque assets declaration law for public officials - and encourage the most honest amongst them to publicly publish their assets and those of their spouses: as an example to their colleagues and to the nation generally.
If they have nothing to hide, and can do so too, then to disprove the many allegations of corruption made against them, President Mahama, and his brothers Ibrahim and Edward, should publicly publish their assets - and those of their wives.
They will find that it will shame their detractors across Ghana - and in the Ghanaian Diaspora. Naturally, one is giving them the benefit of the doubt - and assuming that they are honest and sincere individuals who are not engaged in any acts of corruption.
Incidentally, it ought to be pointed out that there have been occassions when a number of fair-minded Ghanaians, have accused some of the detractors of the President and his brothers, of simply being envious of their good fortune in life.
Perhaps they have a point - as the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) verbally-aggressive Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, who often accuses the President and his brother Ibrahim, of being corrupt, has singularly failed to seize the opportunity offered him by Ibrahim Mahama, to prove those scurrilous allegations in a court of law sitting in Kumasi, where Antwi-Boasiako lives.
If the President and his brothers publicly publish their assets, and those of their wives, perhaps that will also lead to many fair-minded Ghanaians - who mistrust the current leadership of the NPP, and are yet to make up their minds as to which presidential candidate to vote for - eventually deciding to cast their votes for President Mahama instead.
At least Ghana has been peaceful and stable, thus far, under his leadership - despite the active sabotaging of the nation-building effort by those who vowed to make Ghana ungovernable, when the NPP lost power in the December 2008 elections.
And since we will definitely not experience rule by saints, under yet another NPP regime, anyway, why have regime change - when those who dominate the NPP are criticism-averse and hound dissenters in their own party: even whiles they languish in the political wilderness?
What will they do to the rest of us - particularly those of us who refuse to be cowed into silence by anyone - should they win power again, I ask?
The President is doing what he can to fight corruption - in a democracy in which those facing prosecution are deemed innocent until proven guilty.
As the arrest of leading National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) officials a few days ago, demonstrates, as far as is possible, he deals with those stealing from the public purse, when that it is brought to the attention of his administration.
Hopefully, he will do the decent thing, and also insist that Selassie Ibrahim, the owner of Smarttys Management and Productions, should be prosecuted too - for ripping Mother Ghana off in such ruthless fashion.
Asking her to refund GHc1.9 million is not enough - as that will be tantamount to allowing someone who swindled Mother Ghana to get away with her crime.
Somehow one cannot imagine someone like her who had ripped Nigeria off, in such blatant fashion, being allowed by President Buhari to get away with it, if it were brought to his attention. He would definitely ensure that she was prosecuted and jailed.
President Mahama must not allow her to get away with ripping Ghana off, either. No one is above our laws. And if all human life is of equal value in God's eyes, then she is neither better nor more important than all those serving prison sentences in Ghana for swindling our country.
The question the Dr. Omane-Boamahs ought to answer is: What if a forensic audit of her personal finances and that of Smarttys Management and Productions (including bank accounts), by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), showed clearly that she bribed public officials?
A thoroughly dishonest businesswoman like her must not be allowed to obtain contracts for foreign companies either. Any businessperson who engages in egregious profiteering by inflating prices when executing government contracts, is a person who is not fit to do business with the government and people of Ghana.
The Omane-Boamahs in our midst must understand that clearly. They should not defend the indefensible - not when our nation is literally being bled dry by well-connected thieves raiding the national treasury.
Some of those independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians who used to listen to Dr. Omane Boamah addressing audiences and rail against Kufuor-era corruption, when he was a member of the Progressive pressure group, Committee for Joint Action (CJA), are beginning to be irritated by him.
Where are his principles and his abhorance for the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana, by the rich and powerful, I ask? He must not let power go to his head - and must remember that no condition is permanent. One day he too will be out of government. Let him remember where he came from.
Instead of defending such a greedy and ruthless woman, what he should do is to find out how some of Ghana's oil money (or as some also allege money meant for the Ghana Railway Authority) allegedly came to be paid to her, and inform the good people of Ghana - since that is not what it is meant for. That is the real crime against Ghana - the misuse of oil (or Ghana Railway Authority) revenues meant to develop Ghana with. That is unlawful.
Her prosecution by the Mahama adminstration will send a clear signal to the world that the days of impunity are finally over in Ghana.
No one in this country who rips Mother Ghana off like she did should be allowed to get away with it. Yet, that greedy and ruthless woman is being rewarded with yet another contract (even bigger and valued at some US$98 million apparently) - resulting from her lobbying on behalf of foreign entities. That is intolerable.
She is an influence-peddlar of the very worst kind - and it is morally bankrupt individuals like her who are destroying our country with the unfathomable greed that drives them.
The Omane-Boamahs must never forget that it is such greed that led to President Mubarak's downfall in Egypt - and his regime was even more entrenched and ruthless than theirs will ever be. It is time he stopped supporting such fraudulent and greedy nation-wreckers.
Since the issue of high-level corruption is one that the NPP is counting on to help it win the November 2016 presidential election, President Mahama needs to take swift measures to counter that strategy, by publicly publishing the assets of both himself and his wife Lordina Mahama.
If the government is able to substantially resolve the power crisis before the presidential election, and the president and his brothers, and their wives, can prove beyond doubt to Ghanaians that those allegations of corruption doing the rounds about them, are mere falsehoods - by publicly publishing their assets and the sources of their wealth - the President stands a good chance of winning the November 2016 presidential election.
If the President and his brothers and their wives publicly take that positive step, and publish their assets, perhaps it will enable many fair-minded and patriotic Ghanaians, who mistrust the current leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) because they doubt their commitment to individual liberty and pluralism - and therefore would rather some other political party's presidential candidate, other than the NPP's candidate, was elected president in the November2016 presidential election - to consider voting for President Mahama, instead.
However, the President and his brothers, must first publicly publish their assets, and those of their wives, to win the trust of many fair-minded Ghanaians - most of whom dread the Republic of Ghana falling into the hands of the NPP's amoral, closet-feudalists and intolerant plutocrats, who now dominate their riven party.
Alas, if the President and his brothers Ibrahim and Alfred, and their wives, fail to publicly publish their assets, some of us will come to the conclusion that there must be substance to some of the allegations of corruption made against some of them, and that the President therefore does not deserve a second term as Ghana's president.
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