<<Print>>

Just last week, I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to offer special prayers to God to deal with the problems that have been imposed on the hapless and helpless majority of this country by crooks who claim they were put in power by God himself. Sometimes governments confuse themselves with policies which go to affect negatively the lives of majority of the people and policies which help the ruling class. When governments increase taxes, remove subsidies that hurt the poor but put a lot of money in the hands of the ruling class to enable them to procure expensive vehicles and live extravagant lives, their refrain is that things would be better in the coming years. So when the NDC talks about �Better Ghana�, it is because things are better for members of the party. Last Tuesday, when I heard President John Dramani Mahama redefining corruption and at the same time re-echoing the propaganda refrain of his commitment towards fighting corruption, I said, �ooo God, when are you going to listen to my prayers?� But it seems God is still at the first gear. President Mahama is redefining corruption to protect his cronies who have been baptized in this act of aberration. Stapenhurst and Kpundeh, of the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank define corruption as �the abuse of power, most often for personal gain or for the benefit of a group to which one owes allegiance, or perversely enough, by the belief in a supposed greater good�. Apart from the above definition which more often than not applies to politicians and civil servants, it also describes a pattern of behaviour that can be found in virtually every sphere of life. Corruption is not a new phenomenon under the NDC administration, but because of its widespread nature and the active involvement of government officials of the Mahama administration, who have the responsibility of preventing it, it has become more topical than the developmental challenges which confront this country. Today, the Mahama administration is both the synonym and antonym of corruption. So the opposite of corruption in Ghana is Mahama�s NDC while the antonym of corruption is also Mahama�s administration. I believe it is the pervasive nature of corruption and its effect on the poor and the vulnerable in our society that has compelled the President to describe it as �mass murderer�. I am not sure any serious President will deal with acts of mass murder with the kind of kid gloves the �committed President� is doing. Even when the Supreme Court stated that the millions of both local and foreign currencies paid to some criminals who claimed to have worked for this country through the active connivance of public officers should be retrieved, the only radical effort of Mahama to recover the monies was, �I have ordered the Attorney-General to do this or do that�. Today, the new defence for the criminals is that we are not in a revolutionary era and therefore criminals cannot be detained without the due process of the law to take those monies back. Hmmm, what has the President who has commitment to fighting corruption done to his appointees and other civil servants who made those payments in breach of the Financial Administration and Regulations Law? They are walking as free citizens of this nation; some of them are still holding their positions and receiving salaries and the President says what? Now, the President believes that fighting corruption is not limited to dealing with individuals involved only but the systems as a whole. I agree with Mr. President, but need you tell us? You are in charge, what have you put in place since 2009 to improve the system so that massive corruption such as the country is experiencing do not continue? Mr. President, look at the following: Azontaba, which is part of the Rlg Group of Companies was contracted to train thousands of young people and also to be supplied with equipment to work on their own. In 2010, the youth in hairdressing programme took place throughout the country by Azontaba or its agent, but no equipment were supplied to all those trained but the contractor was paid for services not fully rendered. In 2011, thousands of people were supposed to have been trained as seamstresses and equipped with sewing machines, but by the end of 2013, less than 20% of the intended beneficiaries had been offered sewing machines. They have come back to the streets selling sachet water. A company supposedly training people in basket weaving, tricycle repairs and others was fully paid for a contract that was not fully executed. Those who executed the payments when the services had not been fully delivered need no revolutionary measures to be dealt with. Those who certainly made those payments did so on behalf of a corrupt clique governing this nation. The excess expenditure in the region of about US$6 billion in the year 2012 was channelled through some of the people and institutions to you and your party for the elections, otherwise there is no reason why state institutions and Ministries would over run their budgets and still not meet their set goals for the financial year. Mr. President, on the issue of Merchant Bank and Engineers and Planners, how on earth should the Presidency of a nation be involved in what should be purely a matter between a bank and its client, who is not a state agency, and try to resolve it? The Presidency comes into matters between a bank and a client only when the client in distress is a wholly or partially owned institution of the state. Even in such cases, the management of that institution does not write directly to the Presidency. It is the Minister in charge of that sector who will put the matter before Cabinet for it to decide on what to do to bail out that organization. It is not the meeting by the President and his Vice and some selected civil servants. Mr. President, better tell that story to children in the Bole-Bamboi Kindergarten. In short, you lied and the Journalists there allowed you to get away with it. Aooo, hmmm, if it was in the days of yore, yours truly would have asked why the Presidency should arrogate to itself the job of mediating between a bank and its client when the state has no direct interest in the business of the client. No wonder not so much economic and social development has taken place in the country over the last five years. The Presidency does not engage itself in dealing with matters of grave national importance other than matters of individual debtors who do not want to pay their debts. I am wondering if President Mahama, in the mediation exercise ever told his brother to go and pay his debts as he was preaching to us last Tuesday. If you try to defend, protect, wine and dine with people whose actions and inactions can be described as causing mass murders, then, you can be described as a mass murderer yourself. I am still waiting on God to accelerate to clear these criminals before they do more harm to us. I am therefore on mahogany-bitters strike.