When Ministers Stay Above Board…

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, swore-in the third batch of his ministers at Government House on Friday, and asked his appointees to be motivated by their desire to the people, and not monetary and other material considerations.

He charged them to serve with humility, and not to use their influence to amass wealth. According to the Head of State, the task of bringing relief to the people from the pangs of hunger and poverty, should be the overriding principle for the new administration and all its officers.

The Head of State asked all ministers to file their asset returns as quickly as possible, as a sign of their determination to serve on a clean note. Nana Akufo-Addo told his men and women that the job at hand would be difficult. The good news is that they were well-equipped to discharge their duties with honour.

The Chronicle buys into the presidential admonition, and urges all state employees to dedicate themselves to the service of this country. As the Head of State alluded to at the investiture of the new ministers, the office of state is not the avenue to make money. It is a means towards service with honour.

Unfortunately, this country appears not to have benefitted much from honest service in recent times. Reckless state-sponsored expenditure, rooted in dubious sole sourcing practices, had led to the ballooning of the national debt. Yesterday, The Chronicle reported that a summary report by the Bank of Ghana, covering January 2016 to November 2016, a period of eleven months, revealed that the previous administration added a whopping $5bn to the nation's debt stock.

“Available data,” the bank stated, “indicates that public debt stood at US$30.1 billion (71 percent), compared with US$25.6 billion (69.5% of GDP) at the end of November 2016. In the local currency, the total debt stock bequeathed to the new administration by the defeated National Democratic Congress administration of President John Dramani Mahama is GH¢120 billion and still counting. The irony is that when the NDC returned to power in January 2009, it inherited a total national debt of only GH¢9.5 billion.

The Chronicle does not need the services of any ghost to understand how come we have driven ourselves into such a huge debt. Reckless expenditure, in which the infamous sole-sourcing practices took centre stage, drove the debt stock.

There has been no study into how the NDC regime, for instance, courted so much public debt. The answer, The Chronicle can guess, lies in reckless borrowing to execute projects which face value was deliberately pushed way beyond the asking price, in order, we dare state, to benefit those who were driving state policy at the time.

The moment a Deputy Minister, who, before being appointed into government, had never held any job before, returned from a rendezvous in his constituency and reported a loss of a personal fortune of GH¢25,000 from the vehicle he had sent to a car wash, the story advertised a syndrome of state officials doing something fishy with the state purse.

Unfortunately, the State of Ghana lost the opportunity to probe into a how the Deputy Minister deposited so much money in his vehicle, and how he came by the money in the first place.

The classic story of how Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome a businessman with connections to the then ruling party, succeeding in collecting a GH¢51.2 billion loot in judgment debt without any evidence of work done, tells much about how the state purse has been misapplied.

Several unconfirmed stories spoke of former ministers allocating jobs to themselves through their surrogate companies, and fleecing the country dry. It is experiences such as these that informed President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's admonition to this ministers to live above board in all their official activities.

The Akufo-Addo administration has committed itself to a number of national reforms.  According to the President, his cherished hope of overseeing a fee-free second cycle education in Ghana begins next September. There is the promise of One District One Factory, and One Village One Dam in the three northern regions. The state could prosecute these laudable agenda only when the national purse is effectively policed, and there is a marked improvement in resources raked in.

And that means ministers of state performing their functions without enriching themselves and their cronies. The battle to improve on the quality of life of the Ghanaian is going to be tough, but we trust it could be won!