value-for-Money “Ministry” Reeks of an Akufo-Addo Redivivus

I have said it, times without number, that even given two decades at Jubilee House, President John “Ford Expedition Payola” Dramani Mahama would not be able to come up any socioeconomic and politically progressive ideas for the direly needed development of Our Beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. Once again, Yours Truly could not help but literally fall off his chair and have his chair fall over him, when just a couple, or so, days ago, he came a cross a brief news report that, as usual, sounded like one of those characteristic electioneering-campaign stunts of Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja a la Alfred Agbesi Woyome, that was obviously aimed at shaking up the trough of our National Treasury in order to ensure that some crumbs of the scandalously and the unspeakably immiserated Ghanaian taxpayer’s money fell into the laps, as well as the wallets and the bank accounts of a few of Mr. Mahama’s cronies and pet political favorites.

Well, the aforementioned news story was captioned as follows: “Mahama appoints Dr Abdul-Baasit Aziz-Bamba as Acting Director-General of Value for Money Office” Modernghana.com 9/8/26). It immediately occurred to Yours Truly that in practical terms and reality, there has never existed any such an executive or ministerial portfolio as the Ministry of Value-for-Money, except as an electioneering-campaign mantra of the twice-defeated and twice consecutively elected former President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; and to be certain, a very cheap and morally bankrupt electioneering-campaign mantra which, like all things tawdry and garishly Ghanaian, was all much ado about absolutely nothing. Zilch!

The first gut-reaction question, as it were, that crossed my mind, regarded the fact that absolutely no remarkable professional profile about this so-called Value-for-Money Directorate Head had been provided the general Ghanaian public by Mr. Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the Mahama Presidential Communications Officer or Spokesperson, I forget which, in the media release that the Member of Parliament for Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese, in Ghana’s Central Region, put out for public consumption in the wake of Dr. Aziz-Bamba’s obviously boondoggle or sinecure appointment and executive portfolio, except for the fact that like the brazen Cradle-Robbing Mr. Mahama Ayariga, the former National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Majority Leader, recently bumped up the ladder of ministerial-cabinet pork-barrels, Dr. Abdul-Baasit Aziz-Bamba is also the lucky recipient of one of those hat-primping “Continuing Education” type of Master of Law Degrees from the “External Services Department” of Harvard University, pretty much like those vita/resume-spiffing certificates regularly awarded by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for would-be local Bourgeoisie Compradors, pretty much like a Buckingham Palace awarding of the various kinds and levels of Knighthoods, annually, such as the grapevine once had it, had been gifted the presently virtually AWOL Nana Kofi Koomson or “Homson” or “Smokeson,” the sometime archnemesis of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo - aka His Ungodly Holiness, The Archbishop of Akyem-Abomosu and Kyebi.

You know, recently, an old teacher from my middle-school days rather cynically whispered into the ears of Yours Truly, telephonically, that since this writer has already publicly informed the Ghanaian public and citizenry of the fact that the country’s most recent former President and arguably the most progressive and visionary of his kind in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, except when it comes to the question of memorializing Ghana’s most dynamic and progressive junta leader, namely, the brutally slain General Ignatius (Nana Kwasi) Kutu-Acheampong of Atwima-Trabuom, in the Asante Region, of course, that Yours Truly should never lose sight of the fact that Fourth-Republican Ghana’s most materially dynamic and progressive leader, as already mentioned above, is also this author’s Most Beloved Uncle. And yes, the Dear Reader can bet their (or her or his) metaphorical Bottom-Dollar that “Nana The Mini-Club Beer Neck” Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is, indeed, Yours Truly Most Beloved Paternal Uncle, all right.

I know what I am talking about, Dear Reader, because never a day passes by that my apocalyptically disappointing Uncle’s names does not escape from my buccal cavity, as I learned from my old, genius high school Biology Teacher at PERSCO, Mr. Kofi Jakpasu. It also as if by subconscious default of some sort, very likely the direct result of having written furiously and copiously published at least 3,000 (Three-Thousand) articles, writeups and columns - the Dear Reader may choose their pick - over the past decade-and-half, or so, and still counting. But, of course, I cannot let my spoil-rotten Uncle Kwaku Addo-Dankwa get away with murderous crimes of kleptocratic abetment like the Cecilia Abena Dapaah Scandal.

You see, a Harvard Graduate Law School education does not provide the “educatee” with Value-for-Money know-how, except when such education comes parceled in the form of a Harvard Master of Business Administration (MBA), one of the most prestigious of its kind the world over, which Dr. Aziz-Bamba does not appear to have. Add to the preceding the fact that the Mahama Presidency does not provide the general Ghanaian public with even a terse record of some of the most remarkable achievements of the Acting Director-General of the Value-for-Money Ministry or Directorate and soon-to-be a shoo-in substantive Director-General for the latter portfolio. At least some meaningful theoretical and/or practical hands-on experience in Bernard Avle sort of Strategic Fiscal Manage and Auditing Skills.

Now, it cheaply seems to Yours Truly that the Acting Director-General of the Value-for-Money Ministerial Office was primarily appointed to his present post merely because he attended the Harvard University Graduate School of Law - which must be strictly differentiated from the Harvard College of Undergraduate Law School, a much more elite and “brutally” selected Junior Academy of sorts, and not essentially or fundamentally because Dr. Aziz-Bamba is actually qualified for the job. Perhaps, a Harvard University MBA would have saved Yours Truly and his most devoted readers such an unavoidable and an implaccable conniption and the sheer waste of time and precious cranial resources.

One does not suppose for even a split-second that Professor Raymond Atuguba, the former Mahama Presidential Executive Secretary - or some such sinecure show of judicial Akufo-Addo-railroading gratitude to Uncle Willie Atuguba portfolio - was ever the best candidate to occupy the Deanship of the University of Ghana’s School of Law. But at least we all know that the Justice-Emeritus William Atuguba nephew or relative practices what he partially trained for at Harvard. Now, Mr. Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, the professionally jaded Mahama Communications Spokesperson and the sometime Communications Second-Bananas to the late Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah, must feel obligated to inform the economically depressed and deprived Ghanaian public precisely why his boss, Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja, thinks that Dr. Aziz-Bamba is, indeed, the most suitable and/or the best fit or candidate for the inescapably Akufo-Addo-inspired (Or Plagiarized?) Office or Ministry of Value-for-Money.

To be certain, the pork-barrel sinecure post of Value-for-Money is “Inscrutably Dumb” in both its nominal designation and role or function. Now, it is “Inscrutably Dumb,” if also because it could easily be one of the subsidiary or affiliate offices of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. But even as one ardent and mordant New Patriotic Party (NPP) critic of the Mahama-led ragtag government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) once quipped, with the Bole-Bamboi petty chieftain, it is almost always about “Jobs for the Boys,” and “The Girls,” too; and then we can talk about National Development at last.

You see, during his 2024 Presidential-Election Campaign, then Candidate-General Mahama told registered and potential as well as prospective Ghanaian voters that he had been rapidly and supersonically driving the economic development Ship-of-Ghana irreversibly forward, until the proverbial Leprechaun of Akyem-Abomosu assumed the democratic reins of governance and, for some inexplicable reason, started driving Ghana in reverse gear and into a bottomless ravine. Well, so far, based on the first-hand experiences of some recent returnee relatives, friends and acquaintances from the proverbial Motherland, not much that is significantly progressive and worthwhile seems to be happening on the National Development Front; which, in short, means that it is, in reality, rather the Mahama-led State Property-Cannibalizing National Democratic Congress that has been excruciatingly and precipitously reversing the socioeconomic development of Ghana.

Presently, for just one striking example, there are far many more roads and highways in complete ruin and abject disrepair than under 8 years of the twice, consecutively elected Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party. The general cost of living under a Post-COVID Mahama government is also prohibitively scandalous. Why is also why for many Ghanaian citizens and critics, any talk of extending the present parliamentary and presidential tenure from four to five years could not be more heinously criminal.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]