Mahama Cannot Continue To Play The Ostrich

President John Dramani Mahama opened the Pandorax box in London the other day, when he told a BBC interviewer that he as a person had never taken bribe before. The Head of State is currently in Her Majesty's Great Britain, where he participated in an anti-corruption summit, involving other prominent leaders from around the globe.

The Presidential pronouncement has elicited a lively debate back home. As has become the norm in this country's political circus, the issue has become a political game with the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the largest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at each other's throat.

Trust the NDC to take care of its own. Officials of the party and its foot soldiers have mounted a stiff defence of the leader and Presidential candidate of the party. On the other hand, the NPP officials are up in arms going to great lengths to impress upon Ghanaians that the President of the Republic might have been economical with the truth.

To most Ghanaians, however, the issue is not about whether or not the Head of State might have gotten himself soiled in underhand dealings. Most Ghanaians are unhappy with the way and manner this administration has failed to curb cronyism, wanton dissipation of public funds through reckless ventures and outright corrupt deals.

When news began filtering through in 2010 that Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, described as one of the bank-rollers of the political party in power, had succeeded in conning officials of state to part with a staggering GHc51.8 million of public funds for doing nothing, tongues wagged. It was as if the whole society had had a bad dream. Six years down the line, the state has not succeeded in collecting one cedi of that whopping amount from him.

In all this, Mr. Woyome was aided in what Mr. Justice Jones Dotse, sitting at the Supreme Court, described as 'create, loot and share,” by top officials of this administration. After taking quite a bit of bashing from the general populace, the Attorney-General only succeeded in putting Woyome on a show trial, charged with causing financial loss to the state, without any of those who aided him in the scam, being in the dock.

The news is that, Mr. Woyome is walking the streets of Ghana a free man. The state has failed woefully in seizing any of his properties, even when the Supreme Court ordered him to return the loot.   Unfortunately, Woyome was not alone in the saga of 'create, loot and share.' The Woyome scam came with Waterville, Isofoton, Africa Automobile Limited deals, in which millions of state funds were poured down the drain.

Last week, a scam of another gargantuan proportion reared its ugly head. According to information available, the state of Ghana went to the international market and borrowed US$1 billion from the issue of Eurobond, attracting a huge interest of 10.75 percent.  The state decided to give US$250 million of the Eurobond money as seed money to the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund, even though the fund had not even taken off.

The fund, with Mr. Ato Ahwoi, a long standing father figure in the NDC as Board Chairman and Finance Minister Seth Terkper, as one of the fund's five advisors, inexplicably decided that all the fund's US$250 million should be turned over to the United Bank of Africa, a foreign-owned bank operating in this country.

The news in the so-called investment is that, UBA in turn used the windfall to buy Treasury Bills from Government, raking in 24 percent interest. By conservative estimate, the Government of Ghana might have forked out 10.75 percent of the Eurobond interest plus the 24 percent government paid in interest in respect of the Treasury Bills, bringing the total loss of Government to 37 percent.

The other day, Mrs. Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the former First Lady, now leading the National Democratic Party said by the US$250 million scam, the Government directed by Mr. Mahama was “either a thief, not wise or both.”

It is a verdict pregnant with meaning. Unfortunately for the President, not many Ghanaians bought into his assertion on BBC, which leaves Mr. John Dramani Mahama and his administration with a huge credibility problem. The Chronicle would like to urge the Head of State to work on this image, rather than to play the ostrich.