Recover All Loot For The State!

President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo assured Ghanaians home and abroad of his government's determination to ignite the can-do spirit in the country, when he met the Ghanaian community in Bamako, on his recent trip to Mali.

His invitation to nationals abroad to come back home is premised on the determination to build a resilient economy that would cater for all Ghanaians, we are told. In the words of the newly-installed Head of State, this country is in the process of re-igniting the Black Star spirit in the country. In other words, something exciting is about to unfold on the home front under his leadership.

For a country whose number of whose citizens have migrated, in many cases under very difficult circumstances as a result of the crumbling economic conditions back home, the Presidential assurance must be music in Ghanaian ears.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that most people have lost what it takes to pride oneself as a Ghanaian. The soul of society has no resting place, a result of reckless economic policies that have landed Ghana in the woods.

That is why the Presidential declaration must reflect the determination of the new leadership to ensure that the average Ghanaian can cater for him or herself. That should translate into state officials stopping the leak at the state treasury. It should also mean that the Akufo-Addo administration would recover state resources in wrong hands.

One of the main reasons why the President and his New Patriotic Party received such an overwhelming endorsement at the polls on December 7 was the perception by most voters, that only the NPP and its leadership could recover the loot from individuals who used cronyism, sole-sourcing and outright thievery to deplete state coffers.

When Mr. Justice Jones Dotse, sitting at the Supreme Court, coined the phrase “Loot, create and share” the other day to describe the Woyome scandal, which was smelling all the way to the bank, the eminent jurist was also referring to the abuse of the procurement law and its processes, which were deliberately misapplied to enrich state appointees and party apparatchiks in the immediate past.

At that point in our political evolution, the state treasury had deliberately been made to leak like a sieve. State officials, a number of whom had never held a steady job, suddenly became the nouveau rich of society, while hard working Ghanaians could not make ends meet, no matter hard they worked.

The Chronicle toasts to the President's health. The Presidential declaration that turning round the economy could be done, and that the Head of State and his NPP appointees would work hard at it, is music to our ears.

We promise on our honour that The Chronicle would lend a helping hand in our efforts at charting the new course. Our promise though, is premised on the new administration recovering every pesewa stolen from the national treasury. We are not calling for a witch hunt, even though a witch must be hunted out of existence.

What we are asking for is a mechanism to encourage anybody who knows he/she or has amassed wealth at the expense of the state through foul means, to return the loot before the law catches up with him or her. We are looking at a time span to be given for looters to return their loot. Beyond that date, anybody caught by the law for misappropriating state resources should be dealt with as a common criminal.

This country is unable to cater for its citizens, because state officials and their cronies have misapplied state resources. If this administration should clean the slate, it would require a very effective means of recouping stolen assets.

Clearing the mess should mean that when any of the about-to-be-installed officials of state are also caught using their influence to corrupt the system, he or she would not be shielded, but dealt with according to the laws of the land.

When this is done, Ghanaians would respond to the call to work harder, which alone, would increase state resources, and thus expand the national economy.

The Chronicle is absolutely sure that when this nation begins to work again, Ghanaians in the Diaspora would return home to help build a more resilient economy.

There is every indication of happier times ahead for the average Ghanaian. Forward with the national development agenda!