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Let’s be careful about these reckless spendings and purchases
The latest news item that trended on social media about two weeks ago, was the spending of a whopping GH¢34.8 million on past questions for the 2021 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) candidates by the government.
In that story the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, was reported to have told parliament that the ministry procured 446,954 sets of past questions at a unit price of GH¢78.00. He explained that the unit price represented a 32 per cent increase over the year 2020 unit price of GH¢59.00. The ministry, he said, reportedly received 416,060 Scientific Mathematical Instruments to the tune of GH¢ 31,204,500.00.
REASONS FOR THE PURCHASE OF PAST QUESTION PAPERS
Addressing parliament on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, the minister indicated that the decision was to prepare the final year students for the 2021 WASSCE and that the items which were funded from the Free Senior High School Account, were purchased from Messrs Kingdom Books and Stationery.
“Mr Speaker, in 2020, Government through its efforts to help students amidst COVID-19 pandemic, to prepare for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), procured 568,755 past questions for students to try their hands on before sitting for the actual exam,”he said.
He intimated that the procurement of these past questions which was funded through the Free Senior High School account ensured that the results of the 2020 WASSCE was tremendous compared with previous years’ WASSCE performance.
CONTROVERSY OVER THE PURCHASE OF PAST QUESTION PAPERS
The procurement of these items by the government has since generated a lot of controversy among the people, especially members from the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Besides, there have been divergent views as to why the country should spend that colossal amount to procure these items. Why some are in favour of the purchase of the past questions which they claimed has improved the performance of the students in the past, others think it was needless and baseless because of the country’s financial situation. Both sets of opinion are welcomed and that people are entitled to them.
Whether the purchase of these items was done through the laid down procurement processes, is another issue that must be interrogated further. Besides, issues involving purchases of such items must be laid before, parliament for consensus and approval by members from both sides of the House. This, therefore, raises questions as to whether the Minority side of the house, was not aware of the purchase of these items.
PREPARATION OF FINAL YEAR STUDENTS TOWARDS WASCE
If my memory serves me right, I quite remembered that what pertained to the past regarding preparations of final year students of the former West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) was for the students themselves to purchase their own past examination questions for which the teachers used to prepare them for the real examination. That was, indeed, necessary because it exposed the students to become familiar with the questions, so that they could answer them easily when the real examination took place. That in effect minimised fears and anxiety among the students and gave them some sort of encouragement to write the examinations.
GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE ON PAST QUESTION PAPERS
It is, therefore, surprising to hear that the government is now spending huge sums of money to buy these past examination papers for the students every year. Whether these past questions are left in the hands of the students after their examination is something that should be brought to public domain. In any case, these past questions become stale every year because of the mode of how these questions are set for the students to answer.
What is more baffling, is the tendency of government to use the COVID-19 pandemic to justify some of these purchases with our meagre resources at the least opportunity. That is not fair and we need to move away from that viewpoint.
PROCUREMENT OF MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENTS
Another issue that need to be thoroughly interrogated and investigated was the procurement of 416, 060 scientific mathematical instruments at GH¢ 31,204,500. The public and for that matter Ghanaians will be interested in knowing the mode of distribution of these items which were purchased with the taxpayers’ money.
This country is facing financial crisis and that can be seen in the various sectors of the economy. School children are learning under trees as there are limited classrooms to accommodate them, some are even writing on bare floors, there are no classroom furniture, our roads are bad and deplorable, there are areas without pipe borne water or boreholes, public hospitals and clinics are crying for drugs and essential equipment, there are food shortages and this has facilitated the rising cost of living among the people, lack of funds to purchase vaccines to deal with the rising trend of the deadly coronavirus disease, yet money is spent aimlessly and needlessly on things that have no relevance to our survival as a nation.
PURCHASE OF SPUTNIK VACCINES
It is recalled that recently, there was a controversy over the mode of procurement of 3.4 million doses of the Sputnik vaccines from a middleman by the Ministry of Health which generated a lot of anxiety among Ghanaians.
The media, especially the internet, were inundated with criticisms of the government, especially the health ministry over the mode of procurement of those vaccines.
A popular Norwegian website on the internet alleged that the Ghana Government signed an agreement to purchase the Sputnik vaccines manufactured and produced in Russia at US$19 per dose instead of US$10. The Finance Minister alluded to the contract and explained that the government had no choice to make in order to protect the people, hence the decision to pay for the purchase of US$19 Sputnik vaccine.
This matter is currently pending before a parliamentary committee set up by the Speaker to investigate the mode of procurement of these vaccines.
LOOKING DOWN ON THE CITIZENS BY SUBSEQUENT GOV’TS
It is a fact that subsequent governments have not put the interests of the people as their priority and have allowed them to suffer unjustifiably and unduly, even though they secure their mandates to govern this country. Once they gain power, they forget them entirely to wallow in abject poverty.
This is the time for Ghanaians to rise up and hold government accountable for any funds used in the provision of goods and services for our country. Let us not allow these reckless spending and purchases to go on without speaking against them because, after all, it is our own money (taxpayers’ money) which is being used to provide social and economic infrastructure for our dear country.
We cannot continue to spend money recklessly and aimlessly, only to fall back on the multilateral and bilateral institutions internationally to bail us out of our predicaments. The public purse must be well protected and safeguarded through the adherence of the procurement processes as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution.
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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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