When All The President�s Men Take To The Campaign Trail�

Do we have a functioning government at the moment? We are afraid not. Everything points to a non-functioning governance system, as the President and all his men and women take to the road, campaigning for the December 7 Presidential and Legislative elections.

It looks like beyond the December vote, nothing matters anymore in this country. The man voted into power to ensure that the average person on the street is insulated from the harsh economic climate conjured by bungling state officials, has abandoned his brief and is permanently on the campaign trail.

In the name of ‘Accounting to the People’ for projects undertaken by this administration, President John Dramani Mahama left his office at the Jubilee House and visited every region, district and constituency, armed with the sole objective of accounting to the people on so-called projects undertaken, and how much it cost the tax-payer to do so.
President Mahama had, what state officials and party apparatchiks labeled as a Green Book, a publication put together by the Ministry of Communications for company. After an extensive tour of the country, with the latest models of V8s forming long convoys on our roads, not a pesewa was accounted to the people.

Rather, the so-called accounting tour became a campaign blitz, with the Head of State and his long retinue of officials, paid from state coffers to attend to the needs of the people, asking traditional leaders and their people in the various communities to take note of what the government has done, with the caveat that if President Mahama is given the nod for another four-year term, more development projects would follow.

It is a new, but most potent form of gerrymandering. In an exercise that has seen officialdom abuse its incumbency in the worst form in recent years, everything is being thrown at the need for the Head of State to remain at Government House, in spite of the abysmal record of the occupant.

Now, every other political office holder has abandoned his or her job in search of votes. The President is virtually the Head of State on the road. His ministers have also abandoned their briefs.

The Mahama administration is re-writing the campaign manual. We now have a First Lady busier on the campaign trail than Members of Parliament seeking re-election. Across the length and breadth of Ghana, Mrs Lordina Mahama is leading from the front and dishing out various items in aid of her husband’s re-election.

It speaks volumes about how incumbency is being abused to aid the Mahama campaign – that the First lady is being empowered to make donations, the quantum and value of which completely dwarf whatever she and her foundation are able to command.

It is not natural that the First Lady of Ghana donates ambulances and other heavy machinery. We are not suggesting that it is out of place for the First Lady to make donations to the needy.

But knowing a bit of the circumstances of the First Family, before the husband ascended to the highest office of the land, The Chronicle cannot put a finger on these donations as coming from the resources of the First Lady and her Foundation.

Whatever it is, we would like to believe that when the chips are down, officialdom could insulate the state from these donations. It is becoming ridiculous that everything and anything is being thrown at the effort to retain President Mahama at the Jubilee House.

Some of the happenings are not natural. For instance, we have the Vice-President, the Chief of Staff and virtually all state appointees in the trenches, rooting for President Mahama.

When Mr. Julius Debrah abandoned his brief and visited Ashanti Region recently on the campaign trail, the initial reaction from various civil society institutions was a rejection of the exercise.

But, then, many were such institutions prepared to forgive the Chief of Staff, on the basis that it was a one-off exercise and that it would not become a permanent thing. Unfortunately, we were all wrong! Now, it has become the norm, rather than the exception.

Mr. Julius Debrah is virtually part of the campaign team. Government House is without any cover, as almost all senior officers are at one part of the country at any point in time. Government business has virtually been abandoned.
We know that, as a matter of rule, the moment the President leaves office all his appointees lose their jobs. Unfortunately, that is the unwritten rule.

All the same, we do not believe that the entire governance system should grind to a halt, simply because the President of the Republic has an election to fight.

Leaving Government House without cover, while all state appointees head for the election trenches, cannot be in the interest of the nation they all claim to serve.