Mills is an abject failure!

 
This nation is beginning to be an interesting study for Political Scientists. President John Evans Atta Mills is the fourth best head of state in Africa, according to state-run Ghanaian Times, quoting the East African Magazine of Kenya.

I do not believe I have any problem with that. On a continent with the likes of Yahaya Jammeh, Blaise Campaore, Robert Mugabi and Paul Biya clinging to power forever, and many sons replacing their fathers as heads of state, it is not out of the ordinary to rank the President of the Republic of Ghana that high, after the joke of leadership he has provided in three years of mal-administration.

My problem with the ratings carried out by The East African Magazine and proudly echoed by state-run Ghanaian Times yesterday, is with the fact that the leader of the fumbling administration in this country, where people could make claims on the administration and run away with GH¢51m of public funds without showing any evidence of work done, is an 'A' rated leader.

In other words, this head of state, supervising over corruption on massive scale, does not deserve to be rated so high. Yesterday, on the day Ghanaian Times crowed about the President's 'A' credentials, two-public spirited pundits sat on television and rated the President as an 'F' candidate.

Mr. Raymond Bagnadu, a legal practitioner could only award President Mills 29 percent. In other words, on the scale of 0-10, the President of the Republic of Ghana received 2.9 on the score-card of the lawyer and a social critic.

The other panel member on E-TV's Morning Show yesterday, Mr. Tom Mawusi, was even more devastating in his condemnation of the leadership style of President John Evans Atta Mills.

Mr. Mawusi awarded the head of state a score of 25 percent. On a scale of 0-10, the social critic awarded President Mills a total of only 2.5. I am sure if Mohammed Baba Jamal and Koku Anyidoho are sampled, the President of the Republic of Ghana may score more than 100 percent.

If a goat in Atta Mills' Ghana is a cow, then the leader of the group promoting the 'Better Ghana' agenda under which inflation has remained in single digit, at a time goods and services are running at double and treble figures, must be a super human being.

As a matter of fact, it did not take long for Baba to bring this super natural power of the President to the knowledge of hard-up Ghanaians.  On a trip to the Birim basin in the Eastern Region, where flood waters had seized farmlands and condemned some residents to camp in the bush, waiting for the flood waters to subside, Baba Jamal, a perennial contestant to the Akwatia Parliamentary seat, communicated the super natural powers of the head of state to long suffering masses of the nation.

According to the author of the goat and cow theory, the moment President Mills rebuked the flood waters, all floods subsided. In Mark Chapter 4 verse 36-40, the Bible says: 'Now, when they left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with him.

'And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him: 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?

'Then He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea. 'Peace, be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.'

The Holy Book says that Jesus asked his disciples: why are you so fearful?  How is it that you have no faith.' In the case of the President, we are not told about whether he questioned the faith of the people in him.

Fact is:  there are not many people out there whose faith in the manner the head of state is conducting affairs of state can stand any test of time, except perhaps the chosen few who walked from the classroom in a number of tertiary institutions into Ministerial appointments, and are putting up mansions everywhere within three years of praising the head of state to the high heavens.

According to the Ghanaian Times report: 'On Ghana's performance, the magazine cited the number of successes achieved by the government in the previous year. I would like to believe, the reference point is to the President's Action Year-2011 -'including the upsurge in development projects, as well as the $3 billion dollar Chinese loan for infrastructure.

'In an effort to improve the socio-economic well-being of the citizenry, Ghana rolled out ICT training programme for about 5,000 people with disabilities,' and cited the country as one of the fastest growing economies in the world in 2011.'

It is interesting to note that the Chinese loan facilities have not even finished its rounds in the Parliament of Ghana. In effect, the loan has not yet been contracted. We have been told about what the loan is intended to do but we are still waiting on it to perform the functions for which it was contracted at a huge cost to the tax-payer.

Indeed President Mills declared 2011 an action year. But it was the most disappointing in the three years that this head of state has presided over state policy. The flagship STX Korea deal under which the government  surrendered the sovereign guarantee of this land for an engineering and construction firm in South Korea to source for funding to construct 30, 000 housing units for the security services,  did more rounds in the courts than on the construction site. To date, not a single block has been laid in the name of the project.

Both the Vice-President and the head of state himself have intimated that the project is dead in the water. What we have not been told is how much it has cost the Ghanaian tax-payer so far. I am unaware of the rolling of ICT programme for 5,000 people with disabilities.

What I know is that yesterday, state-run Ghanaian Times put up an advertisement for ICT training for students of various institutions throughout the country.

Granted that the state of Ghana has succeeded in training 5,000 people with disabilities in ICT, how far has the state of Ghana made it possible for the trainees to benefit from their training? In other words, have the trainees succeeded in finding jobs after their training?

In 2010, a deputy Minister announced that the Government of Ghana, under President Mills had created jobs for 1.6 million Ghanaians. It turned out that the Minister of Employment was unaware of the opportunities created.

Apparently, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa sat in the comfort of his sitting room and created 1.6 million imaginary jobs. This administration thrives more on propaganda than substance.

In 2010, state money was deployed in publishing a glossy magazine listing what the publishers called the Government's 50 top achievements. It turned out to be a Green Book of Phantom Achievements.

It was all hot air without substance. In a country, where an orange cost more than a tenth of the minimum wage, and a man's total daily earning cannot buy breakfast for the family, it is insensitive to the plight of the people, to suggest that the head of state is an excellent performer.

According to the publication, the exercise rates heads of state on governance, democracy, press freedom, corruption and human development in their respective countries.

In Ghana, the governance system is facing paralysis after it emerged that instructions from the head of state to his subordinates not to pay money that the recipient did not deserve were treated with contempt.

We are told for instance, that the President of the Republic tried twice to stop the GH¢51 million doled out to Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a financier of the ruling NDC. But on two different occasions, the President's instructions were ignored by his Ministers.

Not too long ago, the executive tried unsuccessfully, using the NDC media, to cow down the judiciary. At the moment, executive-judiciary relationship is almost a cat and mouse game.

The independence of Parliament is also threatened by the tendency for the ruling party to use its majority in the House, to roll in unpopular decisions of the executive. The STX Korea deal is one classic example.

Corruption is thriving like the Biblical Mustard Seed. When the Secretary of the ruling party trades with the company on which he sits as a board member without anybody raising a finger, it tells much about how corruption is threatening to become a state policy under Professor Mills.

Press Freedom is relatively active. But the physical attacks on journalists at a recent cocaine trial, does not suggest that all is well.

To sum everything up, this President has only succeeded in sending Ghana further into the woods.

At the time President Mills was inaugurated, the cedi was exchanging for GH¢ 1.10 to $1. As you read this piece, GH¢1.70 would fetch you one dollar. In other words, the cedi has lost more than half its value since the former University don took his concept of a 'Better Ghana' agenda to the Castle.

It is all hot air without substance. If I should rate the President of the Republic of Ghana on his performance, I would not hesitate in concluding that Prof. John Evans Atta Mills is an 'F' candidate.