Things Not Adding Up

Mubarak-Mohammed Muntaka

The Minister for the Interior, Mubarak-Mohammed Muntaka, has a few days ago spoken about important issues with far-reaching consequences.

Important and varied as the disclosures were, we have chosen to dwell on the 'one Alhaji', fake dollars and bars of gold issue which subject made intriguing headlines when it was reported on both mainstream and social media in the early days of the incumbent government. It was instructive how at the time appointees, excited about their new roles, sought to make political mileage with the story.

The story, like others which popped up at the time, evaporated into thin air, popping up occasionally only when the performance of the government came up in street corners or in political circles.

The said 'one Alhaji,' who government promised to nab eventually, is still at large, compelling many to conclude he was associated with officialdom and so would never be identified, not for the public anyway.

The said fake dollars, we have been told from the great disclosures of the minister, went up in flames recently, a process supervised by state agents even as the principal suspect remains at large.

While we do not know what goes into a final decision to incinerate fake dollars, we expected that given the public interest in the so-called fake dollars and the 'one Alhaji' associated with the story and the fact that the suspect is said to be still at large, the incineration should not have been done in secrecy.

It would be appropriate that all details regarding such processes are laid bare to avoid opaqueness which takes away from the image of government.

As we have, and indeed most Ghanaians, given up on the said 'one Alhaji' ever being located, we are hit with another worrying development about government officials linked to the Australia $208 million meth bust.

It is an admission which should have been shared with Ghanaians long before now.

Perhaps had the Assurance Committee of Parliament not touched on the subject, the said government officials whose details we shall never know, especially if they are protected, would not have been told us.

This delay comes on the heels of the earlier delayed announcement about the bust until the international media broke it.

It was so embarrassing that the Narcotics Control Commission's (NACOC) belated quick announcement about it, terse as it was, raised further questions about government's sincerity in the drug conundrum.

We do not doubt the importance of keeping certain details under wraps so investigations are not compromised, but we shall be quick to state that many things as the minister told the Assurance Committee of Parliament are not adding up.

They did not even add up when the strange aircraft landing at the Accra International Airport had authorities explaining it on burst tyre.

We shall have cause to pose further questions as the days elapse.