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Fight against corruption – need to review remuneration
The former President John Agyekum Kufour is on record that “Corruption has been with us since Adam.” This is an honest admission that corruption is a canker in our society. We all recognise that it has a very negative impact on our socio-economic development and must be uprooted by any means possible from our society. It is estimated that it cost the country about $3 billion each year, which is about 4.6% of GDP.
Some of the causes of corruption are due to certain perceptions of inadequate remuneration or compensation for effort, greed, unpatriotic behaviour etc. It is not for nothing that certain categories of workers are given some special treatment like bank employees for instance. This issue must be critically taken into account if the issue of corruption is to be seriously tackled. Consider a judge who sits on a case that involves an accused person who has stolen several millions of cedis. This judge is about to go on retirement and he does not have a house to his name in which he will go to rest on retirement. The potential for him to be easily influenced to condone crime is quite huge. Recent events involving some judges who have compromised their moral stance and judicial ethics are still fresh in our minds.
There is an attitude that has to be dealt with because it is endemic in our society, and if we are to do away with corruption, it must be given priority. Greediness is so entrenched in our cultural setting that there must be a concerted effort from government, civil society, opinion leaders, the clergy and every stakeholder to eradicate it. Education must start from the kindergarten level right up to the top to make sure that it becomes a negative value that must be frowned upon.The situation where people celebrate when their family members are appointed to governmental positions must be critically examined. The cause of the celebration is that once their brother or sister or son or father etc. is now in a position of authority, the financial situation of the entire extended family is going to improve. This puts pressure on the office holder to indulge in activities that are illegal and corrupt in nature to satisfy the family members and the community they come from.
One of the most important arms of government is the parliament, and if we are to ensure that corruption is eradicated from our society, they must actively be involved in it. It therefore becomes imperative for the parliamentarians to be treated in a special manner due to the sensitive role they play in our social and more importantly economic life. international transactions involving huge sums of money that impacts our national debt are approved by these people and the potential for their being influenced by unscrupulous business entities is very great. To ensure that the temptation of being induced to engage in corrupt acts is eliminated or reduced to the barest minimum, require that a second look is taken at the conditions of service of the parliamentarians. There are issues that have to do with their personal protection where they do not have personal bodyguards offered by the state as done for ministers of state. The quantum of money going into their pockets at the end of the month must be critically re-examined to ensure that their loyalty to the nation remains steadfast.
The need for a focused attention on our parliamentarians must be prioritised so that as a nation, the fight against corruption would be a collective national agenda in which parliament plays a pivotal role. It is very important that a national dialogue should be initiated to find appropriate ways of addressing this threat to national security called corruption. Currently, each budget the minister of finance comes up with each year has to be funded in part by donor support. There is research which shows how much we lose to corruption as a nation, and it is my humble opinion that if holes through which these monies are lost can be plugged, parliament has a big role to play. Public accounts committee sittings reveal a whole lot of corrupt practices and it would take parliament to enact laws that can make this practice a very expensive venture to contemplate so that it would be a deterrent to future potential perpetrators.
Another group of people that must be given priority attention is the executive arm of government. A look at the salaries of some CEOs of public institutions makes me wonder why they can earn salaries much higher than the President and the Vice-President who have been entrusted with the resources of the nation. There is a need to permanently resolve the nation retirement packages for the executive arm of government and the legislature because they can make or unmake the fortunes of the nation. The perennial back and forth concerning what end of service remuneration for the executive arm and the legislature must come to an end once and for all.
The practice whereby when a person is being vetted for a public office, you find a whole entourage of chiefs and opinion leaders of the community as well as extended family members, accompanying him, must be discouraged with immediate effect. This would go a long way to prevent the perpetuation of this subculture of corruption brought about as a result of greediness and selfishness in our society. COVID-19 has shown us that we can change and adapt to new ways of doing things. We now go to church wearing face masks as well as wearing masks in town. The nation has come to accept it as the only way to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 and everybody is abiding by the safety protocols although it is a bit uncomfortable. When we put in place certain regulations aimed at eradicating corruption, and we decide to make them work, they would, and the nation would be the better for it.
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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