Hanna Tetteh Solicits Bribe from China

Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Ms. Hanna Tetteh, who also doubles as Member of Parliament for Awutu-Senya West, ought to be reprimanded and possibly fired from the Mahama cabinet for shamelessly and unethically using her office to solicit a kickback, in the form of a newly constructed elementary school building, from the Chinese government (See “ ‘$250K School Block Not My Birthday Gift’ – Hanna Tetteh Fumes” TV3Network.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/29/15).

But I sincerely don’t think what am asking here of Parliament and the Flagstaff House will ever happen. At least not anytime soon. The fact of the matter is that Ghanaian politicians, in general, irrespective of ideological suasion or political affiliation, have lost their innocence and sense of shame. Which is why the half-Hungarian, Ghanaian-born is reported to be damning the nation’s media for accurately exposing what may well be her own version of the MMT bus-branding scam that came to light recently.

That she actively solicited a bribe from the Chinese government, in the form of the building/construction of the Awutu-Senya Junior High School B, a Local Authority or District Assembly School, is reportedly contained in a reactive conniption that she wrote and published on her Facebook Wall. That the keys to the aforesaid school were handed over to the relevant authorities in the presence of Ms. Tetteh, and on the Foreign Minister’s birthday, to boot, makes this gift all the more worrisome. I know protocol may not permit him to comment on this scam, but I am still wondering what the reaction of the British High Commissioner, Jon Benjamin, would be.

for instance, in what ways is the alleged solicitation of this naked and patent bribe in the form of an elementary school block, in the very district which Ms. Tetteh represents in Parliament, any different from the importunate solicitation of “soli” by Ghanaian journalists that Mr. Benjamin has been decrying for some time now? And does not the Foreign Minister’s shameless, albeit diplomatic, solicitation of bribery from the government in Beijing’s local representative in the country all the more damning?

And if, indeed, as widely reported by the national media, the Chinese Ambassador involved in this patent diplomatic scam was captured on digital/magnetic tape to be saying that the newly reconstructed school was intended as a birthday gift to Ms. Tetteh, then what moral right or authority has the recipient to contradict the giver? This is rather ungrateful on the part of the recipient and inexcusably disrespectful.

We must also state here for the record that the Chinese are not well known for giving grants, even in the quite laudable form of the reconstructed Awutu-Senya West JHS “B” District Assembly with no strings attached. Such gifts are often given with the objective of their being reciprocated in one form of favor or another, and so it is rather preposterous, if not downright silly, for Ms. Tetteh to insist that this veritable Chinese Gift Horse was given purely out of the kind heartedness of the Chinese government. We must also promptly and poignantly note that perhaps there are more poor people that needed the money spent on the Awutu-Senya West elementary school in question than the entire population of the African continent.

Then also, we need to highlight the fact that in recent years the Chinese government has been emotionally embroiled in a diplomatic row with the Mahama government over the flagrantly predatory activities of its citizens in the form of illegal mining, otherwise known as Galamsey. And so, clearly, the Chinese may be looking for ways to make Ghanaian politicians and leaders amenable/ susceptible to readily opening up the country for such unarguably destructive predatory activities.

But what makes Ms. Tetteh’s reaction all the more annoying is the alleged writing on her Facebook Wall, to the effect that “The school [in question] is a public schools and not a private property,” obviously conveniently forgetting that Ms. Tetteh is herself a public official who has unduly used her public office for private gain in the lead-up to Election 2016, and not the CEO of a private company purely engaged in private entrepreneurial activities. Her provocative reaction also exhibits the profile of a cabinet appointee who may be both intellectually and morally, as well as professionally, unsuited for the heavy-lifting job of Ghana’s Foreign Minister.

Then again, who said that President John Dramani Mahama, Ms. Tetteh’s boss and the man with whom she has been widely linked romantically, is any better qualified to be CEO of Corporation Ghana?

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