NDC stumbles: has Ghana any hope?

Before I started to put this article together, I pondered over the state of affairs of this country under the round two of the National Democratic Congress and have finally decided to start my write up with a popular Dagbanli proverb, which states that “ the development stage of a testicle would tell whether it will develop into hernia or not.”

The NDC party led by Prof. John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills, then candidate Mills campaign vehemently on the platform of change, not just change, but change for the better. Indeed, there are widespread indications and what I would describe as spot lights that, the NDC administration is in to do nothing.

Just yesterday, a friend of mine drew my attention to something that happened during the inauguration of President Mills on 7th January, 2009. My friend asked whether I watched that inauguration on television that day and I said no. He said the president stumbled and it took the intervention of his body guard to prevent him from falling. Though, I am not superstitious, I'm inclined believe that this current NDC administration is in for nothing, but to stumble throughout the four years. It is not superstitious.

Events after the inauguration would support the fact that they are really in to stumble. The appointment of the acting Inspector General of Police, Mrs. Robinson Mills, even when the Council of State had not been constituted by the president and the appointment of the care taker ministers for the Finance and Interior ministries were some of the constitutional stumbles.

The constitutional blunders did not just end, but exacerbated when the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, then caretaker minister in charge of the Interior Ministry, renewed the curfews in Bawku and Gushiegu towns. Even when it was obvious that it was a substantive minister through a Legislative Instrument (LI) or the president himself that could do so.

There was pressure again from the vituperative Junior Jesus, ex-President Rawlings to remove the Service Commanders and the Chief of Defense Staff without plans for an immediate replacement.

As if that was not enough, the car chasing and seizure spree started with the wrongful seizure of Chief Kuffuor's vehicle and that of the Managing Director of Barclays Bank Ghana. On all these wrongful seizures, apologies were rendered and promises of non-repetitive of such disgraceful acts exhibited.

It didn't take long for the government to commit the worst of all offences. Castle operatives forcefully took away from the driver of the official vehicle of Nana Addo, the 2008 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (N.P.P) on this occasion, an apology was rendered and just a week later, another vehicle of Nana Addo was again impounded in traffic. What is happening to Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana?

The last straw that broke the camel's back was the dismissal letter written and signed by the then caretaker Minister of the Interior, dismissing the former National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) boss. All the above can best be described and categorized as constitutional stumbles.

The trip-up of His Excellency during his inauguration was said to be a bad omen for his administration and that has manifested in almost every action taken by this administration. The current and most recent was the naivety the NDC exhibited in their inability to tell Ghanaians the exact figures of the national debt and that of Tema Oil Refinery.

As if that was the end, the president went to Parliament to present his state of the nation address and again, stumbled in the pronunciation of economy (ecominy, ecomony, production [pronouncing]) which has now become a ringing tone for mobile phone users and jingles for radio stations in the country.
Do you still remember the proverb I started with? It is clear that the NDC has started on a wrong footing.

On the economy, NDC has no clear cut focus and direction. No policy direction has so far been shown. In 2001, when the NPP government took power and things were not easy, they took a policy direction and declared Ghana, a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).

They also employed fiscal discipline as measures to resuscitate the economy. It was the NPP government that also took a bold decision not to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The then president, J.A. Kuffuor had to use his experience in governance and diplomacy for most of Ghana's debt to be cancelled or turned into grants.

The current World Bank loan, which the NDC government has gone to contract is a bad omen and a false start for the government, especially the conditions attached to it, which a Deputy Minister of Information and the Minister of Finance have contradicted themselves in trying to explain to Ghanaians. We are being told that at least, there will not be any recruitment of personnel in all public sectors for two years. What it means is that, until someone dies, retires or resigns no one would be employed in the public sector for good two years. Where are your social democratic principles and jobs for the people?

As part of the Public Sector Reforms, which is a major conditionality for the granting of the over US$1.2 Billion loan for Ghana, over Two Hundred Thousand Ghanaians would not be employed for the next two years.

The NDC government has still not understood the problems in the public sector. Public sector reforms should not be limited to freezing of recruitment in the public sector.

We all know that the public sector needs a lot of reforms to ensure its effectiveness and efficiency, but this is not the right approach.

Any meaningful public sector reforms in the country should first start with our educational institutions where our human resources are trained. We need educational systems that trains' students in critical thinking and ethical service, but not students, as noted by Patrick Awuah, founder of Ashesi University, who “have a stronger sense of entitlement than a sense of responsibility”.

Our educational systems should not just be limited to chew and pour and forget, but should be able, as pointed out by Awuah, “to train a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders and …leaders who have the ability to confront the complex problem, ask the right questions and come up with workable solutions.”

Another issue worth noting in public sector reforms is building effective systems that would be respected by all, devoid of political interference and manipulation, competency and performance based.

The current system whereby, people are given live employment in Ghana, irrespective of whether the person performs or not he/she still takes salary at the end of the month does no good to our economy in terms of increased productivity, but rather takes a toll on government pay roll.

It is therefore important for government eliminate the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in the public sector by making it mandatory for every employee in that sector to sign a performance contract, which must be followed by proper supervision and good corporate governance.

Public sector organizations should also be managed on the principles of administrative entrepreneurship; hinged on innovation, creativity, pragmatism and leadership. Most of our public sector organizations are failing and continue to fail due lack of good leadership.

Ghana has lost and continues to lose huge sums of tax payers' money through ghost salaries paid to ghost names packed on the national pay roll and it takes well laid down systems, leadership, patriotism and monitoring to get rid of such practices.

Sectors like, education, health, the Youth Employment programme and the National service scheme are areas that are fraught with ghost names through which huge sums of state monies are lost.

The NPP administration started the Public sector reforms programme under the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), but on no occasion did they freeze recruitment in the public sector, rather, they brought social mitigation programmes, geared towards reducing unemployment in the Ghana.

The National Youth Employment Programme, the School Feeding Programme, the NHIS, the Mass Transportation programme brought a lot of relief to Ghanaians and reduced the unemployment rate in the country. Mr. President your actions would lead to what I will describe as graduate armed robbery in the country, since the teaming graduates from the nation's tertiary institutions will not be engaged for two years and nothing has been done so far by your administration to empower the private sector to employ them.

Very soon the World Bank will tell the NDC government to list some state institutions for wholesale sale as further conditions for the NDC's insatiable demand for World Bank loans for projects, which I know, would be poorly monitored and it will end up in the pockets of party contractors.

Why won't the NDC government use more ingenious measures of fixing the economy which they claimed was highly broke, but they managed to drink tea and water worth Billions of Ghana Cedis.

The divestiture of state owned enterprises was a component of Ghana's Economic Recovery Program and the Structural Adjustment program (SAP II) under the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), which is consistent with the privatization drive of the World Bank and IMF. It was used also as a budgetary and managerial necessity in the PNDC era.

The PNDC, which later metamorphosed into NDC supervised the sale of thirty State Owned Enterprises by the end of 1989. In August, 1987, forty two Cocoa Board's coffee and cocoa plantations were advertised in addition to thirty two SOEs advertised for sale in 1988 under the PNDC which, the NDC is copying verbatim.

The list was further expanded by an additional forty six on the instructions of the de-facto prime minister under the PNDC regime, P.V. Obeng, then Chairman of the then Committee of Secretaries in July, 1989.

One significant thing that made the sales unbeneficial to Ghana was the lack of experience in divestiture among the Divestiture Implementation Committee and the poorly defined structures of the PNDC government.
The above consequences of seeking loans from IMF and World Bank should be enough a lesson for the Atta Mills administration to learn from its founders military government.

There should be a glimmer of hope for Ghanaians at least in the eighth month, if indeed; the NDC government is a social democratic party.
I started with a proverb and it is important to end with a proverb, which states that, “the slow movement of a lion in the jungle is not a sign of cowardice, but a sign of wisdom and patience”.

The patience and wisdom of Ghanaians in containing the current general economic hardship and soaring crime should not be overly taken for granted by the NDC.

Credit: Abdulai Abdul-Rahman
The author is the Executive Secretary of Security and Dialogue-Ghana.
Telephone: 0246605449
E-mail: [email protected]