Is Corruption or Lawlessness Akua Ghana’s Greatest Enemy?

By Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK March 5, 2019
I visited Ghana from January 12 to 31, 2019 for the one-year Celebration of Life for our late husband, father, uncle and grandfather, Mr David Acquah, who passed away in Virginia, USA in September 2017. It was my experience and observations that made me pose the above question and on the eve of Akua Ghana’s 62 birthday, I share my some of experience and discuss the above question. I refer to Ghana as Akua because March 6, 1957 was a Wednesday and a nation is referred to as she.

My first experience was the impressive Terminal Three. I spent a maximum of thirty minutes at the arrival hall waiting for my luggage and going through immigration. The immigration officer who attended to me was professional and welcomed me back home.

The next was my journey home from the airport and that was the first shock. Road and traffic regulations were hardly observed, including traffic lights which were ignored by motorbike riders. The trotro drivers were the most culprits. They stopped abruptly and jumped traffic queues on the kerb, even on the Accra-Tema motorway. In fact, the indiscipline and lawlessness on Ghanaian roads were not limited to Accra alone but could be national. It was particularly bad on the Kasoa-Accra road.

The highways are no different but particularly, the Accra-Nkawkaw/Kumasi and Accra-Cape Coast/Takoradi roads. Drivers took great risk by overtaking unnecessarily. In fact, on our way to our Alma Mater (St Peter’s at Kwawu-Nkwatia), I was so scared that I thought we could die at any time. On a number of occasions, my mate who was driving had to stop on the kerb to allow them to overtake or we had a headward collusion. This was not once but regularly on both in and out journeys. Most commercial vehicles were overloaded with either passengers or goods. In fact, in most cases, the loads on trucks were not properly secured and constituted risk to other road users and members of the public. In short, Ghanaian roads are death traps.

In the midst of the carnage on Ghanaian roads, the police were everywhere. For example, when we visited Kakum National Park, Elmina and Cape Coast Castles and my first Alma Mater, St Augustine’s with my daughter who was visiting Ghana for the first time, we travelled back in the night. From Augusco to Accra, we encountered over thirty police barriers and road blocks, but they were more interested in collecting money from the defaulting drivers than ensuring that the roads and road users were safe.

On the whole, Ghana is fast developing but the development is unplanned. In fact, Ghana is a country I will describe as ‘disorganised confusion’. No one complies with the laws, rules and regulations and no one enforces same. It’s simply, whom you know and your position. On the roads, if you drive a nice SUV, the police wouldn’t stop you and just waved you on. When I enquired from my mate, he said because they assume the occupant is a big man or politician. No doubt, most of the dangerous overtaking were by SUV drivers.

The filth in urban Ghana, especially Accra-Tema is a cause for concern. There was rubbish everywhere. Whilst the use of polytene bags are being curtailed and discouraged in the developed world, in Ghana, it’s the fashion. Everything and anything you buy including cooked food is given in black polytene bag. For example, when I bought fried yam, fish and sheto on the road side they came in black polytene bag. What happened to that large green leaf that cooked food were sold it years back? Most of the bags end up on the streets and in gutters.

From my nineteen days in Ghana, including the day the by-election violence occurred as well as my previous knowledge of the motherland, I have no doubt that the greatest threat to Akua Ghana’s development beyond aid is not corruption but indiscipline and lawlessness. Corruption is only a symptom of the indiscipline and lawlessness.

No country has developed in the midst of indiscipline and lawlessness. Talk about South Korea, Singapore or Indonesia and they did so through discipline and respect for law and order. Currently Rwanda is fast developing also through discipline and respect for law and order. It’s the disregard for the laws, rules and regulations that allow individuals and organizations to be corrupted. If the laws, rules and regulations are enforced and complied to the letter and without fear or favour as in the developed societies, corruption will be reduced drastically.

For this reason, the discourse on corruption and national development should change from fighting corruption to discipline and lawlessness through law enforcement and compliance. This is relatively easier to achieve and more effective than fighting corruption. For example, no Ghanaian will ever accept being corrupt, but they would openly admit breaking the law. This even happened today at the Emile Short Commission hearing when a National Security Operative, Bright Ernest Akomea admitted breaking the law to allow the VIP at Kotoka International Airport to be used by people who are not eligible. Ghanaians are most likely to accept law enforcement and compliance to checking corruption.

Unlike fighting corruption, law enforcement and compliance involves all and not fighting the so-called corrupt politicians and officials. Again, that would not require presenting any evidence. It is also more cost effective and not requiring the creation of any office but rather strengthening existing law enforcement institutions (the police, immigration, Ghana Revenue Authority, the courts, etc) to do their work as expected of them and in accordance with the laws, rules and regulations. What is required, is a national campaign for citizens to insist on the right thing being done by law enforcement agencies and for them as citizens also to comply with the laws, rules and regulations.

For the above reasons, I am of the view that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) will be a failure because it cannot fight corruption in Ghana. Fighting corruption is beating about the bush because the root cause of corruption are indiscipline and lawlessness. As a medical doctor will tell you, you don’t cure a disease by treating the symptom, instead you treat the root cause/s. The OSP is a waste of resources as it would not be effective in fighting corruption in Ghana. The resources allocated to it would be better spent buying cameras to be installed in offices, especially revenue collecting organisations and for police officers to wear cameras on duty.

In conclusion and from what I saw and experienced in Ghana as well as what I already know, indiscipline and lawless in Ghana is the greatest risk to her development. They are the root causes of poverty, lack of good and well-equipped schools, hospitals, roads, good drinking water etc and should be addressed with the urgency that it deserves. Without discipline, law and order, Ghana’s development would very slow and President Akufo-Addo’s vision of “Ghana Beyond Aid” would remain mere slogan. It‘s the lack of law enforcement and compliance that allow individuals and organisations to avoid paying taxes, steal and loot from the state, amass wealth through create, loot and share at the expense of the state, deprive the state of revenues for development and compel the state to borrow from foreign sources to undertake development. Enforce the laws, rules and regulation and let citizens comply with same without fear or favour, irrespective of one’s position, wealth, political persuasion, gender, age, religion, marriage, ethnicity, etc just for a year and tell me if corruption is not reduced drastically.

Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK