Saturday 19 August 2017

To Rail Against A Thin-Skinned Parliament For Passing 'Stupid' Laws Is Not To Insult The House - As One Is Only Obeying The Constitutional Edict Enjoining All Ghanaians To Expose Corruption

When a very frustrated Sydney Casely-Hayford lost his temper not too long ago, and publicly aired a sentiment  shared by many discerning Ghanaians in private, there was an uproar in Parliament.


Yet, he was actually expressing the national mood in a sense - in as far as some of the rather curious laws  passed over the years by various Parliaments since 1992, represent. Indeed, there are some fed-up Ghanaians who cynically refer in tongue-in-cheek fashion to the passage of such laws as  crimes-against-humanity-legislation because they are full of loopholes for the greedy and powerful folk brutally gang-raping Mother Ghana.


An example is the smuggling into the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor Bill, of Clause 3 (3) and (4) of the bill laid before Parliament which were not part of the original draft Bill submitted earlier in June, the inclusion of which Martin Amidu said  “negates the whole promise that the President made during his campaign and after his assumption of office to fight corruption.”


Thank goodness the Bill was later withdrawn. Every nation full of fence-sitting moral cowards and hypocrites gets the laws its cizens deserve - in our case  laws full of veritable blackholes through which our perfidious vampire-elites manoeuvre and navigate their way out of every conceivable infraction of our benighted nation's many porous laws that they happen to be guilty of.


Unfortunately, it has resulted in many of the members of Ghana's  ruling elites thinking that this is a nation of morons  jam-packed with stupid and foolish  people.


Yet, the opposite is true: As an old wag I know put it succinctly, "Kofi, ordinary Ghanaians aren't fools. It just so happens that ours is a byzantine system underpinned by many 'stupid' laws full of loopholes that enable powerful and greedy high net worth rogues to participate in the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana,  and get away with same. Does that not effectively mean that some of those  we elect to represent us in Parliament who pass those 'stupid' laws are in effect aiding and abetting the crimes of the nation-wreckers gang-raping Mother Ghana?"


Perhaps it is unfair for any Ghanain citizen to say so - but it is also hard to overlook the 'stupidity' of dubious laws such as that classic example: the fraudulent sale and purchase agreement for the Volta Aluminium Company Limited (Valco) to a non-existent International Aluminium Partners (IAP), which was railroaded through Parliament under a certificate of urgency, during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co - despite the loud protestations of the purported IAP joint-venture partners, Norske Hydro of Norway and VALE of Brazi, both of which insisted that they had entered into no such agreement to purchase Valco. Amazing.


So those who rail against the passage of 'stupid' laws do have a point: If truth be told, it is a nefarious practice that is actually ruining our nation.


Finally, one also needs to make the point that if invited by Parliament - as a result of this particular blog post -  I'd be happy to list many of the 'stupid' laws  passed by the geniuses we have elected to represent us in Parliament, over the years.


On the other hand, as someone who despises hypocrisy, depending on my state of health - which is rather poorly at the moment unfortunately - I might opt to simply defy Parliament if invited to justify my remarks: by ignoring any summons to appear before the House and ask them to do their worst. Ghanaians are a free people not the slaves of our nation's ruling elites. Haaba. Ya bremu!


Parliament cannot intimidate a free people in whom soveriegnty resides under our system - by trying to gag all those who dare to criticise them when all that such brave and patriotic citizens are doing amounts to  merely obeying the constitional edict that enjoins all Ghanaians to speak out against corruption.


Passing 'stupid' laws full of sundry loopholes that enable well-connected rogues to dupe our nation and get away with it, does amount to egregious corruption. Full  stop. To rail against that publicly is definitely not insulting  Parliament. We rest our case.

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