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By the time this piece gets into print, Mabey and Johnson (M&J), UK, would have been the most celebrated name on the lips of Ghanaians like Parkinson Howard was, soon after the Kwame Nkrumah overthrow in 1966, when they claimed they had paid bribes to top officials. The subject for the resurrection of the name of M&J would have been worn threadbare, but let me add my say. Both Parkinson Howard and M&J are British construction firms of world repute. They followed the British flag where it fed fat on British colonialism and business. Parkinson Howard constructed most of that edifice called Tema Harbour, most of the old township and the durable concrete top known as the Tema Motorway. It all happened in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s. Some 30 years later, M&J came to Ghana to link most of our stranded communities with concrete and steel. They went away and were almost lost from most Ghanaian memory, but like a volcano, it recently spewed up corruption magma in a Southwark Country Court in London to engulf Ghana. They did so while striking their chests, �mea culpa, mea culpa�� M&J claimed they looked after the �boys� and presumably, �the party� when they executed the juicy bridge construction contract in the mid-1990s, and taking advantage of an amendment in the British law for fraud, they went into plea bargaining. This is a process whereby someone may be allowed to avoid punishment for a serious crime if he admits he has committed a less serious crime. None of us was there when they initiated the negotiation, but I can hazard a guess: M&J would have found themselves in a real trouble and the Board would have sought the advice of their solicitor. The latter would have been mandated to go and talk with the solicitor of the Serious Fraud Office. It would take months to agree to a work plan. The story line would be agreed thus: In the Third World, they operated in a difficult environment where contractors of any magnitude had to be fleeced. They did just that. They would agree to temptation. They did not sin. So, they would be fined and asked to pay reparation to poor Ghana. Most important, they made sure that all directors involved had been packed off on retirement with more than golden handshakes. None of the major player�s name would be revealed and nobody would be imprisoned. It was Parkinson Howard re incarnated. The directors and senior officials of a multinational company speak in very cryptic terms such as �five per centum�, �10 per centum,� �15 per centum�. Other popular terms are �the boys�, �the batakari people�, these need no explanation if you remember the era in question. �Consultancy fee� and �commission� are quite common terms. There is another oft-used term, �Development Fund� which is only a per centum of the contract sum set aside for making people happy. A 15 per centum simply meant that if the contract sum should have been $100m, the firm would give a quote of $115m accompanied with knowing nods around the table. From this tidy extra $15m, donations would be made accompanied with fanciful speeches of �giving back to the community as part of our corporate responsibilities�, meanwhile, the boys and their gurus are made to open bank accounts offshore, where transfer are made to their names. Some of the boys would grow greedy with requests such as scholarship for children to study in top overseas educational institutions, medical bills, air tickets and what have you. Some of the requests are made on parliamentary letterheads to give them some authority. When M&J screamers hit the front pages of Ghanaian newspapers, some smart young men very keen on washing rotten egg off the faces of their mentors said that the �temptees� were innocent people who might have received the fat cheques, because the �tempters� probably said they were giving them in gratitude for a contract successfully executed. What thinking! The amount of money involve was not for jam or kelewele. They were fat and could not be mistaken for anything else but a kickback. Perhaps one should not sit in judgement of the whole affair. It is said that if you have not been tempted, do not say you have conquered sin. Were I handed that booty; I would have probably grabbed it with both hands. If I was sanctimonious to refuse it, my colleague would take it. I am surprised that people are shocked by the M&J Affair because at the time of their contract in Ghana, there was a certain Deputy High Commissioner who would swear at public fora that all Ghanaians were corrupt. This man was never challenged about his utterances. He went a step further by insisting that he be given a stool in the Elections Strong Room to monitor the 2000 General Election Results. His government spent thousands of pounds for the elections. He did not trust that Ghanaians, as corrupt as we were, could be trusted not to temper with the figures. There is also the civil society organisation, Transparency International, who must have known what has been happening all along. Why would anybody be shocked? There was a construction company called ABU that was contracted to lay asphalt on some section of the Accra/Kumasi road in the late 1980s. The specification was seven centimeters of asphalt. They laid three centimeters at some portions and a couple of months after completion, the road started cracking up and became crumbly. The rains came and that road turned into a death trap. The Government of Ghana protested and must have refused payment. ABU uttered their German swear words and dragged the Government to The Hague for arbitration and won handily. They smiled all the way to the bank. The story was told how their engineers would drink themselves silly and in their drunken stupor recite the names of officials who had been taken care of. Why are we shocked? I ask again. For all that we know, there could be several M&J and Parkinson Howards who are still at their shady business in this country, very sure that the worst that could happen to them is a plea bargaining process cleverly arranged between two solicitors and a fine for which they have made enough money to pay any way. The giver is not a sinner. The receiver is, so they believe. As we go round the world scouting for bombers for our Air Force, let us be aware that the suppliers of such hardware operate on the principles of commission and consultancy. Nobody buys an airplane without a warm handshake from the supplier. Dessault and Lockheed have caused enough havoc around the world. They can do worse harm than construction firms. �Beware of the Greeks,� they say, �especially when they come with gifts.� [email protected] (Daily Graphic)