Despicable Conduct Of Some Ghanaian Businessmen

Date published: January 28, 2014
 
 
The media is awash with reports of the Food and Drug Authority, having ordered a local importer to return to his foreign partners some unwholesome flour they sent into the country around Christmas time.

The Chronicle carried the report on the front page of its Monday January 27, 2014 edition, entitled: 'Send This Flour Back -FDA'.

The story has it that when the flour arrived in the country, our compatriot businessman found that it was contaminated with weevils, maggots and some other insects.

Seeing his yuletide windfall profits slipping through his fingers, but unwilling to let go, our unscrupulous businessman reportedly warehoused the unwholesome flour and started manually sieving and re-bagging the flour.

He then placed an order for wholesome ones which he intended to mix with the maggot-infested flour and sell both to the unsuspecting public.

Fortunately, with the God that keepeth Ghana not slumbering, the FDA got wind of the malfeasance and quickly sealed off the company's customs-bonded warehouse at New Weija, Accra.

The FDA then sanctioned the importer and quickly ordered it to re-export the harmful flourback to its owner, with which order he is thankfully said to be complying.

'We closed their warehouse facility. We asked them to re-export the product back to where it came. They have not been stubborn on anything. The things are being re-shipped', a FDA source told The Chronicle.

The Chronicle is appalled that any free-born Ghanaian would ever contemplate sieving a maggot-infested flour and putting it out on sale for fellow countrymen to buy and eat, let alone going ahead to hire workmen to do it.

What drives such fraudulent businessmen? Could it be the smell of money? If so, what would it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul, as the Bible puts it?

How come most Ghanaians attend church programmes throughout each week of the year, but do not allow the church and its gospel to pass through them? Are there any defects in the way the gospel is evangelized that makes it impossible for it to become a way of life for the people, especially the rich and the well to do?

Or is it the general disposition of Ghanaians which is encouraging these conscienceless businessmen to thrive? And why not? After all, when the law catches up with them, it is we, the same Ghanaians, their victims, who would appeal to the authorities to deal softly with them as their staff and their families depend on the salaries from such businessmen for their livelihoods. A real catch 22 dilemma!   Isn't it?

It is generally believed among the rural population that when lawyers die, they are placed face-downward in the coffin, supposedly to hide their faces from God because of the lies they allegedly tell throughout practice, often insisting that something is black when in fact it is clear to all others that it is white.

If the businessmen with conscience do not reign in the black sheep in the fold, a time would definitely come when businessmen and politicians would join lawyers face-downward in their coffins.

May God save Ghana from the rou ges within!