Osafo-Maafo Urges Better Conditions For Development

A former Minister of Finance in the Kufuor Administration, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has observed that although there abounds proof of a brighter future for the country, this could only be achieved when better avenues and conditions for their realisation are created.

To achieve this, he suggested that it was important to stress that “our individual and collective energies and resources should be channelled to achieving accelerated development”.

Mr Osafo-Maafo, who stated this at the Third Annual Ferdinand Ayim Memorial Lecture in Accra, said Ghana’s development challenge should be to promote broad-based development within a stable and peaceful environment, with the ultimate aim of increasing the standard of living of its citizens.

The lecture was on the theme, “Ghana’s developmental challenges: Perspective on the roles of competence, loyalty and sycophancy.”

Mr Osafo-Mafo said Ghana had not made laudable attainment in its development process because some of the “problems we face today are as a result of incompetence, mediocrity, favouritism, tribalism and nepotism, all in the name of loyalty to leadership process, power and authority”.

According to him, the successes of the United States of America and other developed countries in creating huge opportunities for their people could be explained by the strength of institutions that had been built around competence and state loyalty and not loyalty to personalities in authority.

“The level of trust that leadership in such countries has in the competence of some public officers irrespective of their political lineage has also played a remarkable role in making such countries what they are,” he added.

He however, expressed worry that even within the same political organisation competence was at times sacrificed for perceived loyalty as a result of sycophancy and that only God knew how many million more dreams would be shattered by such acts.

Mr Osafo-Maafo quoted the Holy Bible in Matthew 6:2 where Jesus defined loyalty in a very simple way: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon”.

He advised that the sense of loyalty of citizens should be to their motherland Ghana and not to individual persons in positions of power and authority as indicated in the 1992 Constitution.

He noted that it was the responsibility of Ghanaians to fight any tendencies of crooked and malleable system of interaction that would nurture sycophants who only created very juicy messages that leadership wanted to hear and not what would support them to govern.

“Sycophancy is unacceptable not only because it undermines meritocratic advancement and destroy development process but also because its close cousins – backstabbing, character assassination and worst of all, pure corruption are usually lurking right around which will retard our development agenda,” he added.

According Mr Osafo-Maafo who also served as Minister of Education in the former administration, both former Presidents J.A. Kufuor and J.J. Rawlings had at one time or the other fallen victim to such sycophants that led them to make wrong decisions during their periods as presidents. 

He explained that some of the sycophants somersaulted to the new governments as soon as the handing over ceremony was completed and they came in by pretending to be more loyal than the long-toiling genuine party members and sympathisers whose support and activities brought victory to the winning party.

He observed that many sycophants were gradually warming themselves up to President John Evans Attah-Mills.

He cautioned that most of these sycophants use tribal politics which they wrongly interpreted to be loyalty, played the card of loyalty, with some others using tribal connections, creating a false impression to the leadership at all levels that they could best be served by people from your tribe, area and sometimes family or friends.

“This falsehood breeds tribalism and nepotism in our politics based on false loyalty. All the oaths in our Constitution require office holders to be loyal to Ghana, our motherland, and not to individuals,” he added.

Mr Osafo-Maafo urged Ghanaians to acknowledge that they were all different according to their abilities and capacities, so it was important that in addressing issues of national interest, the best and competent persons available were engaged irrespective of their socio-economic and political opinions.

“Of course, loyalty is important in deciding who should be engaged, but we must be able to identify real loyalty from that of loyalty through sycophancy and praise singing.

It is time we placed emphasis on competence and the best available human capacity, skills and experience to facilitate the building of stronger institutions needed to move this country forward”, he added.