Yesteryear's Gravy Train's Engine Was Named 'Sole-Sourcing'; Today's is: 'Restrictive-Tendering'

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana (1863-1952)

The biggest contributory factor to the insidious high-level corruption slowly destroying our country, is the need for political parties to fund election campaigns - and maintain the loyalty of the party activists who do most of the legwork needed to get their parties into power, in between elections.

The conundrum for us as a people, is how to fund political parties from the public purse - and free political parties from the tight embrace of wealthy crooks - in a nation in which regardless of the party in power, clever schemes are regularly organised by a powerful few to siphon off vast sums of taxpayers' cash, in return for regular kickbacks to fund political parties, and obtain the buy-in of politicians from across the spectrum.

Only extraordinary measures will kill the grand corruption impoverishing millions in Ghana. A case in point: When President Mills became our president, a number of oil company executives rushed to meet with him, with the sole aim of obtaining his 'buy-in', to ensure that the one-sided advantages they had obtained at the expense of the Ghanaian people, would not be halted by his administration.

If Mills had done what President Akufo Addo did with Kwesi Nyantakyi - instead of complaining to the American ambassador at the time - and seized the opportunity to have them arrested, prosecuted and jailed for attempting to bribe him, and then declared that henceforth all oil and gas agreements in Ghana would be based on the production-sharing model, today, would we not have sufficient oil revenues to provide free education and free healthcare for all Ghanaians in need of both, but unable to pay for it? Food for thought.

We have a good and honest leader in President Akufo- Addo. Let us support him by watching those around him with hawk-eyes. It is time all those from our nation's decent-minded, well-off and apolitical middle-class demographic, who abhor the greed and deceipt involved in high-level corruption, took a stand and threw their weight behind their compatriots (especially from the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media) risking life and limb fighting to halt the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana from resuming yet again.

To do so, they must get off the fence and start speaking out against the powerful figures who are clearly determined to get a new secret gravy train rolling again in Ghana. Yesteryear's gravy train's engine was named "Sole-Sourcing". The name of the engine of today's gravy train is: "Restrictive-Tendering." We will need the vigilance and fearlessness of the Kwesi Pratts, the Kweku Baakos, the Anas Aremeyaws, the Ace Ankomahs, the Sydney Casely-Hayfords (and other equally patriotic individuals too numerous to list here), to derail it. Hmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem o - asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.