Our Beef is the Rationale, Not the Cost of the Awards

Main Topic | Threaded view | Expanded view

This article may yet be accurately seen to clearly contradict an earlier one that we wrote. This is in no way intentional, and we are not in the least bit rueful about the earlier article which sought to downplay the relative significance of the need for the Government and Parliament to pass a Freedom of Information Bill (FOIB). Earlier on, our emphases had regarded unfettered and protected speech and socioeconomic and cultural development over and above all else. It was, obviously, with the excruciating experience of the protracted dictatorship and bloody tyranny of the so-called Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC) etched front and center, as it were, in our minds.

Now, in the wake of the hosting of the “KUFUWARDS,” otherwise called the National-Merit Honors/ Awards, it has become necessary for us to add our voices to the voices of those who have already been in the trenches and the wilderness for quite awhile now. Our initial reticence, it is significant to observe, was primarily predicated on the practical need not to unwisely jeopardize national security as well as the efficient functioning of democratic culture and governance in Ghana. Alas, the most recent reaction (7/11/08) of the Kufuor Government to complaints about its putative penchant for festal profligacy – or extravagance – and the cavalier attitude of officials in government towards serious matters of both fiscal and moral responsibility, as well as discipline, make it immutably imperative to pressure the Government to pass a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as soon as practicable.

Indeed, it is only the morbidly and clinically cynical who would dispute the need for the Government, irrespective of ideological affiliation, to periodically honor both citizens and foreigners who have, in disparate ways, remarkably contributed to the development of our nation. We also know that any fitting award fiesta, perforce, requires the outlay of decent monetary capital. On this score, therefore, the sum of ¢1.4 million, which reportedly went into the hosting of the 2008 national award festivities, could, in no way, be carped on the basis of extravagance. To be certain, the sum of ¢ 1.4 million sounds too piddling to be true. And knowing what we have so far learned about Mr. Kufuor's “FIESTA-HOLISM,” we are all too willing to bet our proverbial bottom-dollar that the 2008 “KUFUWARDS” cost, by a conservative estimate, at least ¢ 3 million; we may even be willing to up the latter figure to about ¢ 4 million.

What is gravely at issue here is the President's apparent attempt to cavalierly dismiss any legitimate attempt by the media, as well as ordinary and individual Ghanaian citizens to be granted unfettered access to the KUFUWARD vouchers, and thus be able to ascertain for ourselves precisely how much, to the pesewa, was expended in the preparation and execution, or hosting, of the KUFUWARDS. And on the latter score, Mr. Andrew Awuni, the presidential spokesman, has been of absolutely no help at all. Recently, for example, while reacting to media outcry over the KUFUWARD expenditure, Mr. Awuni glibly observed as follows in a press release: “We wish to conclude that the entire transaction is open and transparent and available for the appropriate state auditing agencies anytime required” (Ghanaweb.com 7/11/08).

And just what kind of transaction is so “open” and “transparent” and yet is only “available” for inspection to only the “appropriate state auditing agencies”? In other words, what the presidential spokesman does not seem to appreciate is the fact that any enterprise which entails the use of public funds, must also be open to inspection by the general public. If one may aptly ask: Didn't Mr. Awuni ever hear of the slogan “NO TAXATION, NO REPRESENTATION” during any segment of his high school World History class? If not, then those of us who did stand ready to enlighten Mr. Kufuor's aide about the same – it was the spark that ignited the tinder of the Great American Revolution of 1776. Indeed, any truly transparent government would not be hedging against the release of vital public information by resorting to such devious and manipulative use of language as availing only “the appropriate state auditing agencies” of such public information. The preceding is only symptomatic of governments with a paternalistic and neocolonialist agenda. This is not the kind of Fourth-Republican democracy that patriotic and well-meaning Ghanaians had in mind, going into both Elections 2000 and 2004. And it is important for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to up the ante by passing the Freedom of Information Act before Ghanaians go to the polls on December 7. Nobody expected the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC) to pass the Freedom of Information Act between 1992 and 2000, when Messrs. Rawlings and Atta-Mills held Ghanaians in a throttle.

As for the rump-Convention People's Party (CPP), the top hierarchy of its leadership has since long indicated that neither Press Freedom nor Informational Democracy is a priority on the rump-CPP's political radar. Indeed, not very long ago, Monsieur George Aggudey, a former rump-CPP presidential candidate, had the chutzpah to inform the people of the Adansi sub-state that a CPP tenure would witness the revival of the odious Criminal Libel Law which was auspiciously repealed by the ruling NPP. And so in a real historical sense, ours is a solemn appeal to the New Patriotic Party, and the proud scions of Drs. Danquah and Busia, to promptly rise to the occasion and, with the latter, the challenge and make Ghanaian democracy worthy of emulation by the rest of continental Africa.

Finally, just because some autocratic Ghanaian president instituted the National Honors Day does not, in of itself, legitimize such celebration annually. What makes the National Honors Day fiesta worth celebrating is the fact that it constitutes a salutary vehicle for recognizing and appreciating the phenomenal contributions of those who have made Ghana the “Blessed Homeland” that it has become for millions of us. Needless to say, isn't it rather scandalous that 48 years later, in 2008, Ghanaians are still trying to figure out exactly what makes a country a “Republic”? And also whether our “Republican Identity,” as a nation, has any practical relevance for our present generation?