We Must Differentiate Between Answerability And Accountability

The Deputy Finance Minister Hon Thomas Nyarko Ampem, in parliament yesterday, presented a special audit report into the ministry's activities in recent-past, unearthed a whooping sum of Gh¢8.1b of taxpayers money as stolen by those put in trust to protect the very public funds.

As I listened, I thought it was the Attorney General Dominic Ayine presenting one of his usual media trials of alleged corruption cases. The Deputy Finance Minister, as expected, made the issue appear as though appointtees of the erstwhile NPP Administration have stolen public funds.

And to further muddy the partisan political hair splitting, the Speaker of Parliament Hon Alban S.K. Bagbin ordered a Parliamentary 'inquiry'. And as expected, the matter is going to be turned into a tag-of-war between NPP-ndc, with their respective footsoldiers, ignorantly, jumping into the fray.

Watching this issue deliberated upon all major media platforms this morning, the trajectory, as expected, has been along the lines of NPP and ndc. Meanwhile, the real culprits who are the omnipresent technocrats and career civil servants in-charge, are completely left out of the whole discussion.

In the end, the decibelic NPP-ndc corruption mudslinging will completely drown out the real substance of the alleged financial crimes, and perpetrators walk away with their booty to enjoy in peace, tranquility, and comfort. We don't know Accountability and Answerability in this country of ours.

When financial infractions are detected in a State institution, ANSWERABILITY must be demanded from the political heads, while ACCOUNTABILITY is demanded from the apolitical ominipresent technocrats and career civil servants. But we rather take delight in senseless politicking.

An investigation has been conducted into activities of the Ministry of Finance and financial infractions of astronomic magnitude have been unearthed with paper trail bearing signatures of identifiable individuals. Why not simply hand over such incriminating evidence to AG, but, parliament?

This audit report by the Finance Minister, definitely, cost the Ghanaian taxpayers huge sums of money to conduct, to unearth our 'stolen' money. But instead of the alleged culprits being held to account and our monies retrieved, the matter has been thrown into the partisan boxing ring.

If I were to have the power, all Ghanaian government appointtees, technocrats, and key civil servants in-charge of our State Institutions, would be taken to Rwanda to undergo one-week intensive training program in public accountability and ramifications for irresponsibility in office.

As I have always lamented: we wake up in this country, and all we do is talk from dawn to dusk, while a simple 5-minute rainfall ends up in loss of precious lives, because we are incapable of even keeping our drainage systems cleared and cleaned. Indeed, Ghana's 69 years to nowhere!!!

Justice A. Newton-Offei
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