…Of Monstrous Corruption And The Ordinary Ghanaian’s Cries For Help

In democracy, we vote for leaders to serve the people. In Africa though, leaders who find themselves in positions of power rather than serve the poor, end up amassing wealth for themselves, cronies, hangers-on, wives, girlfriends, mistresses and praise-singers.

So in Ghana today, you find people who pleaded for the votes of the masses few months ago suddenly assume airs of gargantuan proportions. Indeed people who have never worked in their lives have managed to snake their way to the high echelons of power and are looting our treasures with fiendishly insatiable greed of gluttons.

The corruption is so glaringly clear and yet when one questions the source of the seemingly bottomless wealth of the new breed of our society’s nouveau-riche, they rain insults at you with the nonchalance of a spoilt royal.

The apparent flaunting of wealth by today’s non-performing politicians who have suddenly become the bourgeoisie in our society and the blatant contempt they hold the poor worker is sickening. Their arrogance irks no end but to have the effrontery to go on national television and radio to castigate anyone who mentions the word “corruption” is legendary.

In the face of monstrous corruption and the associated hardship, the ordinary Ghanaians are crying for help and yet no one answers their cry. The lack of political will on the part of Mahama’s government to address corruption is appallingly shocking. It appears our leaders have completely forgotten about the rest of Ghanaians as they cruise around town in their fleet of luxurious vehicles purchased and fuelled with the poor taxpayers’ money.

Prices of petroleum products have gone up, electricity and water tariffs have also gone up more than 70% but no one seems to hear the ear-splitting cry of the ordinary Ghanaian whose salary only went up 10%. Ghana deserves better and could do so much better. The NDC government claim there is no money in the kitty as our economy, which was very buoyant just before December’s general elections, is now down to bare bones.

But why wouldn’t our economy be down to bare bones? A government that prioritises in dishing out monies to its cronies under the cloak of spurious “judgement debt” could not have done any worst.

A quick perusal of Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning’s website makes interesting reading.

The Finance Ministry had it published that the “Government has so far paid GH¢600 million in judgment debts…” in the first three years of the late President Mills’ administration. Yes! GH¢600 million in three years! Do readers remember a certain Alfred Agbesi Woyome? He alone received GH¢51million for having no contract with the government of Ghana and doing no work.

Justice Dotse, JSC was spot-on when he described certain elements in the NDC as the “create, loot and share” brigade who specialise in making dubious claims on the government with the tacit support of their accomplices at the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s department.

These are the so-called Social democrats whose tawdry spending far exceeds that of an Arab sheik. Yet they tell us our country is broke.
The government’s pathetic moan about lack of money borders on insanity when one considers the fact that Martin ‘Citizen Vigilante’ Amidu single-handedly fought ‘ISOFOTON’ and ‘Waterville’ at the Supreme Court and won the two cases with the court instructing the government of Ghana to retrieve the millions of dollars paid to the two companies above in the name of dubious “judgement debt.”

Yet, John Mahama and his government have failed spectacularly to even raise a whimper against “Waterville” and “ISOFOTON” because they know any attempt to do so would lead to their door.

So in order to distract Ghanaians from their apparent cowardice in going for those huge sums of money, they have brought the issue about the sale of “Discovery 511” to the fore.

I dare say though that if there was any corrupt deals in sale of the drill ship, let those involved be punished but until that is proven beyond reasonable doubt, why aren’t John Mahama and his government even clearing their throat at “ISOFOTON” and “Waterville, let alone bark at them?

What are we doing to ourselves as a nation? To allow these multinational companies to dupe us of huge sums of undeserved monies from the loans and grants we contract from their governments is criminal but to turn on fellow Ghanaians with unproven and hyped up corruption charges to score cheap political points borders on fiendish jealousy if not goddamned schizophrenic insanity.

Then there is the acerbic stench that has been emanating from the corridors of the formerly National Youth Employment Programme now rebranded with the unholy and mouthful; Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA); as if the long acronym could cover the rot that went on there. It is said that the NDC government funded that agency with GH¢950 million between 2009 and 2012. Ministry of Youth and Sports investigations into the activities of the agency revealed that GH¢200 million out of the GH¢950 million the government pumped into GYEEDA from the poor taxpayers money was paid to privately owned companies for doing nothing. Either we as a nation are not serious or there is something certainly not right with us.

There are many startling revelations of corruption everywhere in the country but the deafening silence at addressing them is even ludicrous.

How on earth Ghana Revenue Authority managed to contract Subah Info-Solutions to the tune of Gh¢144million to provide telecommunication traffic monitoring; a company with no such known expertise in monitoring and verifying volumes of phone calls is a topic for another day.

Readers might not have forgotten the Korle Bu corruption business when Hon Alban Bagbin was then sector Minister for Health. The question that keeps bothering me is: How could any serious nation engage in such high levels of reckless dissipation of the taxes collected from its poor citizens; majority of whom survive barely on anything at all? That the NDC are bankrupt and corrupt is not debatable, but surely they should at least have a modicum of morality.

Today, the TUC are up in arms against the government. The labour union are crying out for a reduction in the utility tariffs or they will go on strike to demand their fair share of the meat before the few who are eating with their hands and feet finish the bones.

I am with the TUC on this. They should demand their share with no mercy. If foreign companies like “Waterville” and “ISOFOTON” could dupe the country in cohort with government appointees like Ebo Barton-Odro and others, then why shouldn’t bonafide Ghanaians cry out for theirs?

Let John Mahama tackle the corrupt elements in his government if he wants us to believe he is not in anyway connected to the “create, loot and share” brigade that was so succinctly described by Justice Dotse JSC.

In the face monstrous corruption, the ordinary Ghanaian cries for help. Would you hear their cry, Mr President?

Source: Kofi Kyei-Mensah-Osei/daily guide