Manasseh’s Folder: John Mahama and the python eaters of SADAland

The author, Manasseh, received Young Achiever's award from President Mahama in 2012

The faces in a hall at Christ the King Parish were happy ones. It was a Sunday afternoon. The worshipers had left but another group of people troubled by a common background of poverty had gathered in one of the halls at the parish. They were members of the Northern Development Forum.

Their happiness was because the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) bill had been passed into law to speed the development of the three regions of the North.

The Northern Development Forum (NDF) was birthed in the wake of the 2007 floods, which ravaged the northern part of the country. NDF helped to raise and coordinate relief items for victims of the flood. The forum and its members lingered on after the floods had subsided, and with subtle pressure, got the John Agyekum Kufuor administration to start the Northern Development Fund, which the National Democratic Congress (NDC) predictably had to rechristen. The battle over the original ownership of the idea raged between the NDC and NPP in the 2008 elections campaign.

But today it wasn't about who took credit for what? President John Evans Atta-Mills' administration had given birth to SADA and there was celebration at NDF. Part of that Sunday's agenda was to write a letter of appreciation to the president. I remember at that meeting some individuals who had worked hard to see this happen were appreciated. The boy from Bongo who had written a number of news commentaries on GBC's radio also received a modest pat on the shoulder.

That feeling of hope and great expectation gave way to despair and anger as I traveled from one community to the other, visiting SADA project site, seeing with my eyes, what had been done with hard-earned cash of a starving nation and absorbing the harrowing stories of persons who were supposed to have been beneficiaries of the noble SADA initiative.

There have been concerns that the Joy FM reports will weaken donor confidence in SADA and consequently its imminent death. What such critics don't remember is that before those reports were published, SADA did not make it to the national budget for the 2014 financial year. Before the Joy FM investigations, the President had forgotten to mention such an important intervention in his State of the Nation Address. Many of us suspected that all was not well with the ailing SADA but Joy FM reports only provided evidence of it.

In all of this, I have been waiting for the reaction of one man. President John Dramani Mahama has not said a word about SADA. He has not taken any action on it. But as it stands, whether SADA will die or live to tell the happy SADA story we are yearning to hear, depends on him.

He can choose to ignore SADA the way he has done so far and the authority will die a natural death. He can also decide to clean up the authority by ensuring that every stolen or misused cedi is accounted for. He can then put the right people in charge and task them to rebrand the authority, not with words but with action. SADA's problem is not about the policy. SADA's problem is not with the lack of experts to manage it. It's about indescribable greed. When the greedy hands are prised away from the bowl of porridge meant for the poor, the starving masses can get a sip.

Unfortunately, President Mahama's reaction to such scandals is more painful than sitting listening to Gilbert Seidu Iddi telling you why the SADA afforestation and mango projects are success stories: “We recruited farmers. We planted trees. We created jobs.”

It over a year since the scandal that collapsed GYEEDA broke. As we speak, the officials who opened illegal bank accounts and siphoned state money into those accounts are still at post, even though some of them have confessed to the crime and stated how they shared the proceeds. They have not been interdicted and many months after Abuga Pele and Phillip Akpeena Assibit were charged, Ghanaians are still wondering if any of these people will be charged and when that will be.

The ministers who signed those outrageous contracts are still in office. The major service providers have only been asked to refund money and only the Old Man above can tell whether and how they are complying. It's almost a year since the GYEEDA report revealed that a certain Director of Finance at GYEEDA had confessed he could not prepare a financial statement. But about One Billion Ghana Cedis or more had passed through that agency within his tenure. He is still at post.

Meanwhile the President is talking about reforms at GYEEDA. Is this not what Lawyer Egbert Faible Jnr calls spreading mayonnaise on cow dung?

In South Korea, a ferry drowns and the Prime Minister takes responsibility resigns. Under President Mahama, no one takes responsibility and no one resigns. And no one is punished. We said his predecessor was weak but under him, a certain sports minister was forced to step aside when the “chichinga” scandal broke. Under President Mills, three Ministers were forced to resign at ago when the Mabey and Johnson bribery scandal over a decade ago came to light. Under President Mills, Betty Mould Iddrisu was made to resign following her involvement in the Woyome Scandal.

But the money Clement Kofi Humado had caused the state to lose through the Better Ghana Management Service contract with GYEEDA alone is more than four times what was paid to Woyome. He is still a cabinet minister a year after the scandal broke.

Our wise elders say a chief who does not punish evil commands it to be done. It is therefore not strange that Kobby Acheampong, who was chosen to act and lead reforms at GYEEDA, decided to advertise the Youth in ICT module without authorization at the time all modules had been frozen. If government's explanation that it didn't know about the ads until Joy FM took up the issue is anything to go by, one can assume that the president's inaction is proving our elders right.

I have never met President Mahama in person apart from our brief encounter at the 2012 Youth Achievers Awards where I walked up to him and handed him a copy of his book for an autograph. “Bravo, young man. Keep up the good work.!” he wrote before signing.

I can't imagine what he would tell me today, but if I ever meet him, my advice for him would be very simple:

Mr President, much of the nation's woes are because of you. We accuse the finance minister and authorities of the Central Bank for problems they are not responsible for. The state is practising money laundering in the way it doles out money to few undeserving people and companies – who Kojo Oppong Nkrumah calls polipreneurs.

Mr President, have you realised that the money you borrow or collect from the tax payer does not get to the intended beneficiaries because of corruption? It is true that corruption started from Adam, as President Kufuor would glorify it, but in your time, what we are witnessing is wearing a five-piece suit and a cowboy's hat to match.

Mr President have you realised that every scandal that breaks up in recent times has something to do with companies, belonging to Roland Agambire and Joseph Siaw Agyapong? Remember GYEEDA? SUBAH? And almighty SADA? The GYEEDA report says contracts were skewed in favour of their companies. Will you look into their operations as some people have suggested?

Mr President, you recently told a story about your journey to Switzerland to illustrate a point. Permit me to also tell a tale about my experience in Mandeland. One Sunday morning, I was being driven from Sandton City to the central business district of Johannesburg so I could be closer to The Star newspaper, where I was to do my internship. The driver of the sleek and sexy Benz suddenly slowed down on the highway, where there was no traffic. When I asked why, he said there were speed camera's around.

“They will bring me a fine if I speed. I will lose my license if I don't pay. I can even lose my job,” he told me.

Mr President, please the constitution has given you more powers than the speed cameras on the highways of Johannesburg. I know you are interested in running again in 2016 elections. And you are reported to have said that Ghanaians have short memory. You are very right on that one.

When the mass of sweaty bodies huddle together in a dusty field somewhere in Gyeedaland or Sadaland; when a certain handsome and youthful presidential hopeful arrives at a campaign ground with a ten-kilometer convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers; when the ear-shuttering public address systems blur and set the place ablaze with the rhythm that precedes Jewel Ackah's 'Arise, arise for Ghana, all patriots of the land,'; when a certain John Dramani Mahama mounts the platform and declares to the sea of party faithful: 'It still dey beee kεkε' and the crowd goes crazy, nobody will remember GYEEDA. They will not remember SADA or SUBAH. They will not remember the many corruption scandals your inactions may produce in the future.

But if there is anything the 2008 elections have taught us, then it is the fact that the Ghanaian voter cannot be taken for granted.

Mr President, sometimes I fear for the security of this nation when you seem unconcerned about our woes. Why am I saying this? Many centuries ago, a certain president said: “If the Arab Spring has taught us anything, it is that, it is no longer acceptable to be ambivalent about the needs of the poor and marginalized in our societies…”

Mr President, if you thought this profound quote was coming from an opposition element with the aim of causing fear and panic, then you are wrong. It is coming from a certain John Dramani Mahama. He actually wrote this on his official Facebook page on April 8, 2014 at exactly 15:23 GMT. I only hope he understood what he wrote.

Finally Mr President, let me leave you with this proverb from our Akan sages of old: “The man who sits at home and watches children eat python will not be left out if the roll call of python eaters is conducted.”

No evidence may have been produced against you in the numerous corruption scandals that have rocked and continue to rock our republic. But when Christ Jesus doesn't come tonight and we look back one day, we would say there was an incentive for corruption in Ghana when the Fourth successive John ruled as Ghana's Fourth president in the Fourth Republic.

That incentive is your inaction.

The writer, Manasseh Azure Awuni, is a Senior Broadcast Journalist with Joy 99.7 FM. His email address is [email protected]