Are all Ghanaian politicians really corrupt, incompetent, and criminally-minded?

Ghana, my country, your country, regrettably, has been losing billions of dollars since the adoption of the Fourth Republican Constitution to the heartless nation wreckers, who take weird delight in swindling the state at the expense of the poor, the infirm, and disadvantaged Ghanaians.

In recent times, we have read, heard, and watched the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice briefing Ghanaians on the gargantuan corruption and sleazes, including an alleged over GH500 million misappropriation by some previous appointees of the National Service Scheme(NSS), hereafter, the National Service Authority(NSA).

That, to me, is a step in the right direction. That being said, it would also be fair and proper if the Attorney General and the ORAL can investigate the present and all the previous bribery and corruption allegations, including the double salary grabbing Members of Parliament.

Fellow compatriots, I must confess , I had mixed feelings when I read some time ago that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service had submitted the dockets on the investigations of the double salary grabbing Members of Parliament to the Attorney General’s Office for advice.

My incertitude, my dearest discussants, unfortunately, stemmed from the fact that Ghana’s justice system tends to clampdown heavily on the goat, cassava and plantain thieves, and more often than not, let go the stubbornly impenitent criminals who hide behind the narrow political colorations.

Of course, fellow Ghanaians, the recipients of the alleged double salaries have an inherent right to the presumption of innocence. Suffice it to emphasise that it is the job of the investigative bodies to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, or to establish a prima facie case, and not a job for the suspects to prove their innocence.

Let’s face it the good people of Ghana, Ghanaian politics has become an embarrassing profession, not a noble profession it used to be. Needless to say, it takes good people—good citizens and leaders with impeccable integrity and unmatched commitment to build a prosperous nation.

Yet a lot of people who can claim birth right to steadfast adherence to moral or ethical code would never go into politics.

I presume they dislike the toxic levels of partisanship. They hate the intrusive media scrutiny and they aren’t ready to pay the high personal costs of political life.

Once upon a time, anyone who gained a seat in parliament was looked up to and respected by all. Alas this is not the case anymore.

It is quite nauseating to see some public officials who prefer to be called honourable behaving somewhat dishonourably.

How can honourable Members of Parliament knowingly and fiendishly keep double salaries to the detriment of the poor and the disadvantaged Ghanaians?

It beggars belief that individuals could form an alliance, create, loot and share gargantuan sums of money belonging to the state and would eventually slip through the justice net.

Let’s be honest, if the law can excuse a suspected double salary grabbing Member of Parliament from prosecution, the law might as well make room for the equally important contributors such as farmers, teachers, doctors among others.

Why must we allow a section of the population to perpetrate criminalities and then hide behind the law?

I have always held unadulterated view that if we are ever prepared to beseech the fantastically corrupt public officials to only return their loots without any further punishment, we might as well treat the goat, plantain and cassava thieves same. For after all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I am afraid, the democratic country called Ghana may not see any meaningful development, so long as we have public officials who are extremely greedy, corrupt, and insensitive to the plight of the impoverished Ghanaians.

It is an indisputable fact that we choose to exercise our voting rights in an expectation that our lives would be transformed positively by the government of the day.

So, it is somewhat imperative to vote wisely and not through the whims and caprices of some selfish, manipulating, and unprincipled geezers, who are bent on manipulating the unsuspecting voters for their own self-aggrandisement.

In fact, some of us are of the firm conviction that the unbridled devoted attachment is not the way forward. But, instead, electorates should rather look beyond the narrow political lines and assess the bigger picture.

That is by mulling over the way we can develop exponentially and which political party and individuals can take us forward as a nation. And, more so, the right people that would not embezzle our resources anyhow.

Let us, however, be honest, it is somewhat fallacious for sceptics to argue impetuously that all politicians behave and act the same when in power and therefore they don’t see the need to change from one to another.

You may believe it or not, the sceptics feeling of indignation with the current political dynamics is something shared by many Ghanaian electorates.

But that being said, the critics disposition is somewhat specious, because politicians have different levels of integrity, temperament, competence, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, so they are never the same, so to speak.

In fact, there is enough evidence to counter the sceptics who insist that politicians behave and act the same when in power.

Take, for instance, President Kufuor, who helped to move Ghana from the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) status to a Lower Middle Income status when he took over from former President Rawlings in 2001 cannot be seen as a laid-back leader.

It is well-documented that “during the year 2001, debt as a percentage of the GDP was not only unsustainably high and crippling but also deprived Ghanaians from money which could have been used for needed developmental and social projects”.

The fact though, is, the benefits of the HIPC were “unprecedented during the Kufuor’s regime from (2001-2008).

Macroeconomic indicators begun to stabilize and Ghana’s debt stock was significantly reduced by about $4 billion within that period (BOG).

There were Rapid infrastructural developments as well as social and policy reforms. Ghana was then moved from an HIPC economy to a middle income economy under the Kufuor administration (Mutaka Alolo, 2012).

By the end of 2008, Ghana's economy had been quadrupled to US$ 28 billion, a period of eight years under the NPP. The average GDP growth of the NDC from 1993-2000 was 3.8% while that of the NPP from 2001-2008 was5.2% with economic growth reaching 6.3% in 2007 (Daily Guide, 2016).

Disappointingly, however, during the Mills/Mahama’s eight years, they managed to uproot the good foundation laid by President Kufuor and his NPP government.

As a matter of fact, it would be most unfair to put for instance, Dr Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and J. J. Rawlings in the same basket and compare their achievements.

For if nothing at all, Dr Nkrumah was a chivalrous industrialist who built hundreds of factories and only for President Rawlings to off load all to his cronies through his somewhat infelicitous Economic Recovery and Divestiture Implementation Programmes.

In the same vein, it would be boundlessly unconscionable to put President Kufuor and President Mahama on the same pedestal in terms of the implementation of social interventions.

Suffice it to say, President Kufuor and his NPP government pragmatically introduced the free Maternal Care, the School Feeding Programme, the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Mass Transport System, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the National Youth Employment Programme, hereafter, GYEDA, amongst others.

My dear reader, would you be sincere enough and name just a single social intervention that has been implemented by President Mahama and his NDC Party apparatchiks who claim to be social democrats?

In fact, it would only take a disputatious character to challenge the fact that the NDC faithful, who take pride in the social democratic ideology, are not in the business of promoting the welfare of the masses.

One would have thought that individuals who pride themselves as social democrats will be extremely empathetic to the needs of the masses, but this is not the case with the NDC as a party.

It is an open secret that the NDC has a penchant for running down or cancelling crucial social interventions. It is a sad case of social democrats who do not know how to initiate and manage social interventions.

There is no denying or hiding the fact that the successive NDC administrations wilfully cancelled/collapsed the Nurse’s Allowance, the Teacher’s Allowance, SADA, GYEEDA, NHIS, the Maternal Care, the School Feeding programme, the Mass Transport System, amongst others.

Since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution, the self-proclaimed social democrats have been opposing social interventions that have been proposed by the successive NPP governments such as the Free Maternal Care, the NHIS, the Metro Mass Transport, the School Feeding Programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), , the Free SHS, amongst others.

In sum, it is not entirely correct for anyone to assume that all politicians are the same, once they are in their comfort zones.

K. Badu, UK.
k.badu2011@gmail.com

   Comments0