Ghana’s campaigns to soccer events lately have been waged with so much controversy regarding the cost to the Ghanaian taxpayer. State officials who take decisions on behalf of the people take decisions without recourse to the financial administrations laws of the Land as though we have none.
We are yet to know exactly how much it cost Ghana to wage the last campaign to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Our performance on the field of play as well as the Technical/Management tables left much to be desired. Ghana did what no nation has ever done in world soccer history by carting a whopping GHC3.5M to Brazil for the purpose of paying the bonuses of rebelling players against our national and some international laws.
As if the shame brought by this debacle was not shameful enough, we recently embarked on the AFCON campaign despite the low spirited Ghanaian public support resultant from the previous poor showing by the team with an even more disgraceful attitude.
Nobody knew the budget cut out for the tournament. When questions are asked, the answers we are told only remind us of the attitude of the Prof JEA MILLS in the Woyomegate scandal – “I don’t care about how Woyome got the money but who caused it?” Thereby ruling out any possibility of wrongdoing on the part of Woyome. In the end, Ghana is in court claiming that Woyome had defrauded the State. How thoughtful and forthright the late President Mills was indeed!
We spend from the public purse as though it is nobody’s business. Who in this world does spending without planning? Even with regards to ‘impulse’ buying which is often done without much serious planning or consideration, some amount of care or caution is taken in order not to spend what does not belong. Yet the Minister for Youth and Sports is telling us that there was nothing untoward to spend from the public purse without giving the owners of the money they hold in trust how much in estimates they were going to spend.
Mahama Ayariga who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Bawku has thus opened vitriolic attacks on media persons who in the name of press freedom and public accountability have asked questions in that regard, describing their questions as “silly and senseless”.
That is Ghana’s money for you. Who cares about how it is spent? We are experiencing so much hardships resulting from an unprecedented power instability and short supply partly from our inability to buy the fuel needed to power our power generating machines. So Ghana needs cash presently urgently. Who cares?
We are told from certain circles that the media is behaving as though Government is run on radio. Oh, is that so? Why does Government run the Communication and Information Ministry and hold routine press conferences to tell of what it is doing or how it is running the nation via radio and television? Is that one running the government machine on the ground or the in the offices of those ministers who appear?
Sometime one wonders the logic with which some people speak in Ghana especially when it comes to the question of accountability on the public purse. We behave as though the public purse is some abstract that comes from nowhere and belongs nowhere. Really? Who cares? Would any man allow for money to be expended from their scarce resources without a fore knowledge of how much is going to be spent?
Ghana is not some abstract cow that can be milked dry dead without a shout or protestation from those are affected the most. If it were from Mahama Ayariga’s private pocket, we bet he would behave differently. But does he care that it is Ghana money?
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