This will collapse a Government in a serious country II

There is a security concern about this title. But I will explain at the end of this presentation because I obviously cannot mean it literally as in a coup.

People see you. Yes, those friends and neighbours put up smiles but have questions. They know that you could not afford much until your party came to power. Yes, for some of you, they know you could not even secure a bank loan for a ¢50,000 car.

Yes, they gossip, and some of them, your best friends, tell stories. Today, you can pay on the spot cash, in hundreds of thousands of dollars, for a five-bedroom house in a plush location in the city and do profligate stuff.

Like Sir John, you may not acquire the property in your name, but they know. They know that approach is not a new strategy but the standard operating manual for you thieving bunch of politicians and public office holders with opportunity and access to public funds.

They know that you do not earn a quarter of what you spend as much as you do. They may not know how you came by your wealth. One thing they are sure about is that you can’t sincerely explain the source of income for that new big business or the one run by your relative or associate. They seem to have resigned to this vicious circle that impoverishes the majority.

Suddenly, you can afford what you call ‘philanthropy’ but which is limited to those select communities in that constituency you now visit regularly. They gossip about how you try to outspend the District Chief Executive, who is using state resources in a manner to gain political advantage for personal ambition.

They are very familiar with what you are doing ahead of party or national elections. We know how many genuine people or those who don’t have the opportunity of public office and are unable to build a war chest don’t get support for electoral office.

Some candidates in the upcoming NPP executive elections are telling the world the obvious as they complain about the over-monetisation of the elections.

Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy was one of the party’s best presidential candidates by all standards. But no one voted for him because pedigree and great ideas alone were not attractive enough. Even the media didn’t give him as much attention ahead of the elections as they did after he released the book ‘Chasing the elephant into the bush’. I gave him a bit of coverage. A couple of years later, he returned to Kumasi with a wristwatch gift for me, and I cherished it.

He knew at all times that I will not accept even transport fare (T&T). He and Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko appear to be in the same league – they have deep enviable roots in politics and national service. They are frank, independent-minded, have a great pedigree and proven track record in the corporate world, and show passion and conviction to offer good and principled leadership. But these rare qualities don’t seem enough.

So, we know the roots of the corruption, the grand corruption problem that the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD)’s Afro-Barometer finds has been normalised in Ghana.

If we had a law expanding the constitutional provision on unexplained wealth to affect relatives and with guidelines on effective enforcement, I believe a lot would be achieved in fighting corruption.

We have a whistleblowers law requiring a fund to compensate those who expose corrupt conduct, but there has been no interest in setting up the fund and ensuring the protection the law offers are available and effective. Some are doing everything to frustrate the power of the RTI law to fight corruption.

Mr President, your convincing promise to this fight was the biggest attraction propelling your election victory in 2016. If you don’t see what happens around you, how do you explain your inaction when the facts are brought to you? I wrote a letter for a minister who resigned on principle, not having been accused of stealing a dime. It was tweaked to insert a line of praise for you for being upright.

In the last couple of weeks, Joynews has handed you incontrovertible evidence of corrupt conduct by your appointees, but you seem to feign a lack of awareness. Can you at least act on those? Someone was not very smart in forging a contract by altering the contract sum of ¢5.7 million to ¢10.4 million.

The petition is said to have been lodged with your office at the start of the year and copied to some five other appointees, but not even an acknowledgement yet, and your former appointee is blocked from getting an audience in the Jubilee House for five whole months?

We thank God the Special Prosecutor has intervened, commenced investigations and taken steps to stop payment of the inflated amount of ¢5 million since we raised the issue on Newsfile about a month ago after he was also petitioned.

When I joined the ever-bright Bright Simons on issues of the cost and procurement for the controversial Cathedral, the purpose was not for the unnecessary emphasis on the comparison with the disputed cost of the architectural design of the Burj Khalifa or even the propriety of that project.

The invitation to you and your Government is to keep to your word against resorting to single-source procurement and doing so by violating the procurement laws with impunity and in a manner that appears to confirm what you convinced us was unacceptable – cronyism-procurement with inflated prices smacking of corruption.

We wait for explanations why one architect is handed some seven or more multimillion-dollar projects without competition and in breach of the procurement laws of Ghana.

We see an abundance of the very things we joined you to crusade against to collapse Mahama’s Government in 2016. Your appointees and party people defending the naked rot, now impervious to advise and criticism, were constantly on this show over these issues. So, those at the helm of the realm who spoke to me expressing concern about the title of My Take, please rest assured I don’t mean it literally like a coup d’état.

You know I don’t believe in that, and my firm conviction, which I have expressed publicly, is that our democracy will never witness such again.

I doubt the possibility of impeachment of a Government (President) that’s not accountable so long as our Parliament remains what it is. But I believe in collapsing such a regime at the polls.

 

Source: Samson Lardy Anyenini