PLATO’S FOLDER: Why President Mahama must not be the new Akufo-Addo
President John Dramani Mahama (L) and William Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo Photo Design by Jephthah Owusu Agyei
It was a normal week day at Assin Sibinso, my father’s hometown in the Assin South district of the Central region, almost two and a half decades ago.
I was visiting some teacher friends of mine after school when I saw Kwadwo Amoako, a young man in his mid to late twenties then, having been arrested by the residents for stealing a bunch of plantain because he was hungry.
He was beaten to pulp, paraded through the major streets of the community and later handed over to the police. Kwadwo was arraigned, convicted, and sentenced to two years imprisonment for stealing. There was no consideration for the fact that he was answering to nature’s call- hunger.
It’s been a while since I went to church but I remember in Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5, Jesus and his disciples harvested some corn and ate because they were hungry. Matthew 12:1 puts it as follows: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them”.
The grain didn’t belong to them but it is interpreted by Bible scholars that once they were harvesting to eat and not to sell, it didn’t constitute stealing. If what the Bible says is anything to go by, it means if a man is hungry and takes something little to satisfy his hunger, that should not be deemed stealing.
But Ghana has laws which are incongruous with what’s in the Bible.So, what Kwadwo did is not permitted by Ghanaian laws. Because of that, he was beaten, shamed and jailed in addition.
The Auditor-General’s Report
In 2012, when Captain Smart assumed duty at Adom FM as the host of the morning show, the editorial segment dubbed: Fabɛwɔso, was mainly focused on the Report of the Auditor-General (A-G). When I became his Production Assistant in 2017, I had the opportunity to keep in my custody, some copies of the Report. Till date, I still have with me some photocopies of the malfeasance recorded by some state institutions at the time. It started in millions of cedis before increasing to billions.
According to the Auditor-General’s reports over the past decade as reported by Graphic.com, financial irregularities including misappropriation, cash irregularities, procurement breaches, and payroll fraud have cost the state approximately GH₵99.57 billion between 2014 and 2023.
I have never been a friend of Mathematics, but I still remember that when a decimal is five or more, you can round it up to the nearest figure. So, in ten years, this nation lost GH₵100 billion to ‘public servants’ per the A-G’s report.
Public servants and politicians do what Kwadwo did, harvesting where they have not planted, and because they use pens and computers, unlike Kwadwo, who harvested someone’s plantain, or the armed robber who pulled a knife or a gun to rob, their acts have been classified with “nice adjectives” that do not present a true picture of their deeds.
Instead of describing their acts as stealing and labeling them as thieves, we say “financial irregularities,” categorised into misappropriation, cash irregularities, procurement breaches, payroll fraud, and a host of others. Oh, I forgot that other nice name under which all these deeds are branded: Corruption.
Every year, the A-G comes out with a report and I am yet to count just ten people who have been jailed directly in relation to these malfeasance uncovered by the Auditor-General in at least, the last decade.
Public servants and politicians alike, take what belongs to the State everyday. They create, loot and share. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been playing political chairs with power, and whoever gets the opportunity to govern mess our funds up and go unpunished. It has become a ‘scratch my back and let me scratch your back’ situation. And the few moments one government attempts a prosecution on a political opponent, party foot soldiers besiege the premises of the security agency undertaking the investigations to demand the release of the accused. The process is branded political witch-hunt.
Sometimes, I struggle to understand the mentality of the Ghanaian. Because a person belongs to your political party, it becomes a crime for him to answer to how he expended State funds? Due to this, politicians and civil servants always team up and turn our resources into their own, leaving the poor tax payer at the mercy of posterity.
Scandals under both NPP and NDC
Several high-profile political scandals have occurred in Ghana under both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) administrations between 2009 and 2024. I am not saying the years prior to that were scandal-free.
But for the purposes of this discussion, I want to limit it to this period. These involved allegations of corruption, procurement breaches, and financial mismanagement, frequently sparking intense public debate and political finger-pointing. However, few weeks after the release of the report, sometimes even days, we will not hear about it again until the next report comes.
If Ghana were any serious country, people should have been languishing in jail for their corrupt deeds. But as usual, scratch my back and I scratch your back so we are still where we are. Let me share with you a few of the major scandals recorded under both governments between the period in question.
Some scandals under NDC administration (2009 to 2016)
- GYEEDA Scandal (2013): The Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) was found to have paid millions of Ghana cedis to private companies through irregular, sole-sourced contracts for training and services that were largely non-existent.
- SADA Guinea Fowl Scandal (2013): The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) spent millions of cedis on projects, including a widely criticised guinea fowl rearing project, with little to show for the investment.
- AMERI Deal Scandal (2015): The US$510 million deal for AMERI Energy to supply 10 power turbines to address the power crisis was deemed by opposition MPs to be severely inflated by over US$150 million.
Some scandals under NPP administration (2017 to 2024)
- BOST Contaminated Fuel Scandal (2017): The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST) sold 5 million litres of contaminated fuel to unlicensed companies, causing a financial loss of about GHC 15 million in revenue to the state.
- US$2.25 Billion Bond Saga (2017): Then Finance Minister, Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, who is now a fugitive from justice, was accused of a conflict of interest, alleging that the bond was tailored to benefit his cronies in the banking sector.
- Cash for Seat Scandal (2018): Expatriate businesses were allegedly charged up to US$100,000 to sit close to President Akufo-Addo at an awards ceremony, sparking accusations of influence peddling.
- PDS Electricity Scandal (2019): The contract to manage Ghana’s electricity distribution was terminated after it was discovered that the Power Distribution Services (PDS) provided fraudulent bank guarantees.
- Agyapa Royalties Deal (2020/2021): The government’s plan to monetise future gold royalties via a listing in Jersey in the Channel Islands (a British Crown Dependency known as a tax haven) was suspended following a report by the Special Prosecutor citing corruption risks, lack of transparency, and procurement breaches.
These are just a few of the many corruption cases reported by the Auditor-General between the period under consideration. Causing financial loss to the State at the various departments and agencies as well as state institutions occurs every year.
The ones I mentioned are just those the public will be familiar with. But the question is, how many people can we count as having been jailed for these scandals?
However, Kwadwo Amoako, like other petty thieves, was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment for taking someone’s plantain. As for those taking what belongs to the State, they are walking free. I wonder how this will not incentivise others to learn from those who have gone scot-free.
What influences the voting pattern of some of us
Mr. President, I know the wheels of justice turn slowly as you the politicians have always been telling us. But this time around, you must change the wheels if they’re old so they can move faster. We have been patient for too long and the political chairs have lingered for so many years.
How long should we sit aloof for people to continue milking the state to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of the masses?
In his attempts to become President of the Republic, I voted for him because William Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was known to be the ‘no-nonsense’ man who had no heart to tolerate an iota of corruption under his watch.
But what did we see? He turned out to be the ‘Clearer-General’ who was clearing his appointees of corruption even before investigations were conducted.
Because you have been there before and promised to recover every penny taken from the State, many Ghanaians who are not members of the NDC voted for you to see that become a reality due to the level of rot we witnessed under the erstwhile administration.
When you were voted into power, I gave you an 18-month “honeymoon” to put things in place before I start critiquing you. Because I felt eight years of damage was too much to be demanding a lot from you in less than a year and a half.
It’s not 18 months yet and what I expected you to be able to do from 18 months on, you were able to do that in less than a year after taking over power. Talk of inflation, exchange rate, fuel prices and what have you.
With the trajectory of the economy as you inherited and where it is now, only a political hypocrite or sycophant would say you haven’t done anything. The economic indices are awesome and I dare say that with what we witnessed under the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration, if they were still in power, Ghana’s exchange rate would have been hovering around 25 cedis to a dollar, with a litre of petrol not doing less than same amount.
This is based on global indices at their time compared to now, with the current tensions in the Middle East in perspective. Even though the NPP claim you didn’t do anything to achieve this economic feat, they couldn’t achieve same with the “something” they did at the time.
Why Mahama’s achievements will be ‘meaningless’ if…
Despite everything you have achieved and yet to achieve, for some of us, you’ll not be measured by how well the cedi stabilised under you, or how you improved the cost of living. You will not be in my good books for bringing down inflation or fuel prices. But the number of corrupt officials you were able to jail.
Many Ghanaians voted for you because of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL). But how much have we recovered almost 18 months into your administration? Those who have been found by the Attorney-General, Dr Dominic Ayine, to have plundered the nation into losses are still walking in town as if they haven’t done anything wrong.
On the contrary, those who steal goats, fowls, coins and foodstuffs to satisfy their hunger just like Kwadwo Amoako are handed the swiftest sentences because they are poor. Meanwhile, those who are making the nation lose millions and billions are walking free and all we see from your Attorney-General is update upon update upon updates. Sixteen months is enough to have at least, recorded some convictions.
Another Auditor-General’s report has come and this time around, we don’t want it to be business as usual. We need action. You should act. I am not an expert in law, but I know there are fast-track courts where some cases can be expedited for people found culpable to go to jail.
Or are we going to do the usual back and forth for your tenure to end so that a new government will come and file dozens of nolle prosequis to free their apogees on trial? We are watching you closely to see if you would let people pay for their deeds or it would be business as usual.
Conclusion
Dear Mr. President, the Auditor-General’s reports have become a recurring narrative of causing financial loss to the State and impunity, with perpetrators often escaping accountability every year, at least, since the commencement of the Fourth Republic.
From Rawlings to Akufo-Addo, the Public Accounts Committee hearings has only become a mere formality, with the pattern of corruption being repeated as same movie script with different actors.
Every administration makes an attempt with some prosecutions, but these efforts are often dismissed as politically motivated witch-hunts. But if there are witches, why shouldn’t we hunt them? Why do we shy away from holding those responsible accountable?
Every pesewa misappropriated by these public officials as contained in the Auditor-General’s reports tells us the opportunities we are missing. Our classrooms lack furniture, our communities lack potable water, while basic amenities have become alien to our vicinities. Yet the poor are punished for the petty crimes they commit, while those who loot the State coffers walk free.
Mr. President, I know you’re not directly responsible for jailing people who misappropriate state resources. It is the courts. But, before that could be done, your Attorney-General and Minister of Justice must initiate prosecution for such people to face justice. You promised to recover the loots and I know you knew what you meant when you made that promise.
If you fail to realise this achievement of making those responsible for such losses face the full rigours of the law, your achievements in other areas will be of no relevance to some of us. We will not remember the economic growth or infrastructural projects you have accomplished if those through whom the nation lost billions still visit the same shopping malls with us and shop in trolleys as if they are going to open shopping marts in their homes, drive all the latest vehicles and live lavishly at the expense of the trader who risks her life to Burkina Faso to import tomatoes and pay taxes.
We see how some of your appointees laugh, dine and publicly worship some of the very people you all swore in opposition to prosecute if you’re given the mandate. Today, you’re in power and instead of such persons explaining to the courts how the state lost those huge sums of monies through them, your appointees are feasting with them. What happened, Mr. President?
If those causing financial loss to the State escape justice and walk as free men, describing those making it genuinely in life as lazy or useless because they have benefited in one way or the other from what the State lost through them, what then would be the motivation for people to do what is right? After all, they know they can create, loot and share, and in the end, nothing will happen.
In all honesty, if we don’t see as many prosecutions and convictions as possible under your tenure, I, for one, will not see any difference between your administration and that of Akufo-Addo.
It is time to break this cycle of impunity and show Ghanaians that Justice, is not merely a name given to males in Ghana, nor is it just a title for judges at the courts; Probity and Accountability, are not mere political slogans; but rather, words that should remind every Ghanaian entrusted with State resources that, one day, they will account for their stewardship and should therefore discharge the role as if whatever is under their care are their personal or family properties.
The words have been enough since 1992 and the time for action is now.
Sincerely,
Felix Anim-Appau.
The writer, Felix Anim-Appau, works with the online unit at Media General. The views expressed in this piece are his personal opinions and do not reflect, in any form or shape, those of the Media General Group, where he works. His email address is kwadwoasiedu2012@gmail.com, and he can be found on X as @platofintegrity
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About The Author
By all means, ORAL must work, stolen monies must be recovered and perpetrators punished; the only way ordinary Ghanaians will regain credibility in our governance.