Reflections On Recent Issues

I read a Ghanaweb.com news report yesterday, which alleged that a daughter of President Akufo-Addo, had been "fingered" in the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company  Limited (BOST) substandard fuel sale scandal, with great skepticism.

One got the distinct impression that it was most probably fake news. And how monstrous and abominable that is.

However, be that as it may, it is important that those in charge of communications at the presidency, swifly issue a public statement dispelling that potentially ruinous rumour - if the story is actually false that is.

The question I posed to myself after reading that improbable story was: Why would a well-brought-up daughter of a president who loves her father dearly, embroil herself in the dubious and scandalous activities at BOST - especially when she is aware that her father won the 2016 presidential election largely because a majority of voters believed the promise he made during the election campaign that he would end high-level corruption in Ghana if elected Ghana's leader?

Which brings one to the anger and frustration of anti-corruption and good governance activist, Sidney Casely-Hayford, one of the leading lights of OccupyGhana - the well-regarded Ghanaian pressure group dedicated to ensuring accountability in our country.

So fed up with Parliament's duplicity, toothlessness and impotence is Mr. Casely-Hayford that he apparently wants Parliament to be scrapped altogether and replaced instead with regional assemblies. Heavens. Ebeeii.

Perhaps it escapes Mr. Sidney Casely-Hayford that  that most alarming prospect, would play right into the hands of the small number of powerful tribal-supremacists in our country, who dearly want Ghana to become a federal state consisting of the pre-colonial tribal entities.

Perhaps our Sidney also forgets that District Assemblies are indeed debating chambers for a number of elected and government appointed Assemblymen and women who speak for people at the grassroots level?

Instead of Sidney's throwing-the-baby-with-the-bathwater-proposal to scrap Parliament because of its many deficiencies, perhaps what we ought to do - instead of incurring yet more recurrent expenditure funding 10 regional parliaments - is to ensure that we separate the executive and the legislative branches of government permanently: by ending the incomprehensible practise of parliamentarians being appointed to serve in the executive branch of government as ministers.

And lest one forgets - before one ends this reflective  piece - it needs pointing out to those who now govern our nation that if they want  the Bureau for National Investgations (BNI),  to be as dedicated to serving and securing the national interest as well as promoting the welfare of all Ghanaians, just as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) of the U.S., serves the best interests of the U.S.A. and the American  people, then this blog's humble advice to the powers that be is to quickly appoint retired Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah to head the BNI, for the good of our country.

The BNI definitely needs someone of integrity who is as independent-minded and fearless as he is to head it - and restore its credibility, tattered image and battered reputation.

Finally, one needs to make the point that it is totally unacceptable in this day and age, for the authorities in our country  to look on practically unconcerned, as a shanty town of kiosks selling vehicle spare parts,  a small army of  concrete products makers, sundry environmentally irresponsible welders and vehicle repair workshops, steadly grows along the perimeter of the Weija water reservior. Haaba.

Are those officials of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in charge  of securing the integrity of the Weija water resevior  going to continue looking on until waste vehicle oil and toxic chemicals from the ever-growing numbers of squatters bordering the shoreline of the Weija Dam  poison it permanently? Hmm, Oman Ghana - eyeasem o. Asem kesie bi ebeba debi ankasa.