Public Thievery One Too Many

Senyo Hossi
The level of corruption and outright stealing from the public purse are becoming unbearable and unless something is done about it and soonest, no organ of state will be spared the raging and destructive contagion.

The energy sector, already on its knees following the record recession that has hit it, is still the target of government appointees and their collaborators who are lapping everything that comes their way like starving mongrels.

From the construction of countless filling stations to tampering with figures in the petroleum industry, they have made ill-gotten fortunes to the detriment of the state.

The players in this industry – and they are many – do not deem it fit to sympathise with a sector which is reeling under the effect of mismanagement and wanton thievery from the public purse.

Even board members of the appendages of the bleeding industry are partaking in the division of the spoils of corruption. Not even the gusto of a marauding army after a military campaign can equal the zeal with which the stealing brigade is looting.

The story about the corruption and graft that has afflicted the various segments of the petroleum industry demands urgent intervention lest the haemorrhage kills everything which derives energy from it.

The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), according to available details, could be part of the cabal, milking the state dry even as unemployment stands unbearably high and the Cedi under constant pressure from convertible currencies.

BOST has a history and so what is being churned out as representing the dirty goings-on in the establishment should be a cause for concern.

Indeed, the media is on the verge of getting fed up with the mantra of corruption and stealing from the public purse. Having reported on it almost on daily basis and continuing, their position is justifiable. That this is happening in a country which has been seized by a borrowing spree and in fact making it a cornerstone of its tenure is worrisome.

The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) remains underutilised, even subtly shut down – a reality which inures to the benefit of those constituting the milking industry.

So much has been said about the ailment being suffered by the industry that we are tempted to ask whether there is something government is keeping to its chest. Isn't it time for it to let Ghanaians in to what is going on?

We are constrained to think that the rate at which the stealing from public purse is going on, there could be a deliberate plan to augment the contents of a political war chest as we especially head for the next presidential elections.

With no end in sight for the country's woes even in the face of opulence by government appointees spiced with corruption, those suffering the repercussions of the stealing and graft are likeable to squirm.

Social unrests, history teaches us, have been triggered by such outright thievery.