Honesty is always at the heart of integrity. He who acknowledges he has problems will surely find solutions. This was the case when former President John Mahama admitted he rode a lame horse in the 2016 elections. Many misunderstood him especially the New Patriotic Party which is now a dead elephant!
The situation Mahama suffered and endured when he was office is nowhere near Akufo-Addo and the NPP’s and yet they have drawn Ghanaians into serious destitution and dejection. The lame horse Mahama spoke about was his party that had toiled to address a severe dumsor never experienced in this country. His government tackled a severe IMF conditionality that froze even employment in the public sector. In fact, he was tolerant of agitations of a misled nation that was impatient with his vision but are now regretting. Definitely posterity has judged in favour of John Mahama as he posited in 2017. Indeed, time they say reveals everything!
The fact of the matter is that the NDC of 2016 is not the NDC of 2020. It is clear Ghanaians understand now that the party was actually preparing a comfortable future for them but were deceived by a cabal of state capturers whose intent is to come, loot and destroy. The alternative the NPP gave Ghanaians could best be described as a dead elephant. A lame horse has life and have hope of regaining health and has indeed gained health but the dead elephant is only heading for the grave. December 2020 requires burial for it.
NPP has proven to be only managers of corruption and empty blaring of non-achieved disjointed promises. The numerous scandals NPP engaged in since 2017 have all been swept under the carpet neatly by the President himself Ghanaians now see as a corruption clearing agent. The human rights lawyer has turned himself into a lawless administrator who fenced himself with sleazers, thieves, scammers and looters.
There was no investigation nor prosecution of the massive rot at the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST). Alfred Obeng was only replaced with another cohort while he walks free. Kroll &Associates was dashed $1million of Ghana’s money for no work done. Osafo Marfo pocketed this money and the Auditor General dares not expose it, he was sent on leave for the rest of Akuffo Addo’s tenure.
The Energy and Information Ministers confessed that the PDS deal with ECG was fraudulent and was cancelled. Nobody is prosecuted in this mother of all corruptions because it is President Akufo Addo who gifted this legacy to his family. Ghana will not get justice because its President is behind this state capture. He is bent on leaving a legacy that will enrich his family while the country goes poor. In fact Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire will be jealous in his grave seeing how Akuffo Addo is modernizing state thievery.
To think he promised and set up a special Prosecutor’s Office to fight corruption is a laudable idea is a regrettable mistake. Akufo Addo only played to the gallery in appointing a white elephant Martin Amidu as Special Prosecutor. Since his appointment the NPP worked tirelessly to muzzle the ‘corruption fighter’ and rendered him nonexistent. He has no power to fight any clear corrupt activity of the Akufo Addo administration. They determine to him what he should attempt; and worthless one at that. Papa Alamisi is now simply a toothless dog!
Last year a staff of the Metro Mass Transit petitioned his office to investigate the Managing Director for corruption in a bus sales scandal. The presidency jumped in to stop the SP and asked the MMT board to conduct a shambolic investigation which ended up only relieving the MD of his post without punishment. That scandal is cleverly covered. Similarly Frances Essiam was caught in another financial impropriety this time alleged by the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company board of directors. The board was dissolved to save the culprit Essiam. The KelniGVG rot, new cedi printing, the revised American deal, the Oslo Embassy building purchase are more of the prominent savageries the NPP visited on the country.
As if cursed to be corrupt under NPP, the Jubilee House became a ‘Julor’ House. All manner of thieves are harbored in there under Akuffo Addo. The deputy chiefs of staff are gatemen who charged $20,000 before anyone can book appointment to meet President and when that materializes the President himself costs the person $100,000 to sit at a discussion table with him. They were deeply involved in a shady manoeuvring in revenue collection at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in the same manner before they collapsed Unibank.
More shameful is the conduct of the Inter Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) chaired by Science and Environment Minister, Prof. Frimpong Boateng with Charlse Bissue as Secretary. The committee was headquartered in the Presidency and was doing dirty business right under the nose and eyes of the President until a Tiger Eye PI exposé woke the country up to their rotten activities. Charles Bissue was caught taking not less than GHc50,000 to issue fake permits to illegal miners. The chairman of the committee was himself implicated in the illegal sale of confiscated excavators to enable illegal mining to destroy our water bodies. Their activities encouraged the Operation Vanguard team to do same. They are all at post untouched.
When we talk of security in the country, nobody is safe under Akuffo Addo. The all die be die spirit has exorcised in his militia formed to give effect to his character. The invincible forces, delta forces, Kandahar boys etc are given state security uniforms and accoutrements to terrorize citizens. From Ayawaso West Wuogon to Asawase, to Banda to Aflao this Presidential terrorists are acting with impunity without being checked despite existence of an act against their formation and activities. Their violence at Tema and Kumasi court rooms is well documented.
Our education system under this NPP administration has been so severely destroyed that an urgent remedy is required to reverse the downward spiraling of standards. Never in the history of post colonial Ghana has a government implemented a bogus policy like the NPP did despite warnings of the negative consequences we are experiencing now. Without infrastructure, the so called Free SHS was rolled out. Overwhelmed with the resultant deficit and poor handling of the numbers, the clueless government scrambled into an unenvisaged double track system. Students now have to compete for few facilities, have less contact hours and spend more days at home idle.
At the ongoing West African Senior Schools Certificate Examination, the rampaging of candidates demanding ‘apo’ is a clear case of having learned nothing. The manner of preparation received as if past questions are the only things to learn has rendered our future leaders dependent thinkers. More of these will resurface when they get to the tertiary level. Critically a bold intervention is required to salvage this mess. The double track system must end soon as promised by John Mahama and Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang. Our standards of Education will dip further without it.
The agric sector is annually growing negatively under the NPP. The stolen and renamed Planting for Food and Jobs has turned into a smuggling syndicate. Year on year fertilizer and other materials are sold across our borders. The subsidized fertilizer meant for cocoa farmers under Mahama is now sold by NPP constituency chairmen as their business. The fall army worms problem has not been dealt with completely.Food is now very expensive in the country.
The overhyped and nonperforming economist-vice president has abandoned his self-assigned economic duties for telling digital lies. The cedi depreciation against the foreign currencies is now alarming, inflation for July stood at 11.4% yet Bawumia resorted to claiming 15million Ghanaians have bank accounts. One should be wondering whether the numerous accounts in the collapsed banks are still valid. After compelling people to inconveniently obtain tax identification numbers, the confused digital novice is asking for the use of Ghana Card numbers as TIN numbers from next year. That will be if he ever finds himself near where he is now.
If one wants to narrate all the biography of a dead elephant, its burial will be delayed. NPP has lost track and heading to defeat in December while Mahama’s lame horse gained fat and health and running fast back into power. The stage is set. Self-tickling dead elephants Buabeng Asamoah and Sammy Awuku are in a comfortable lead to the grave.
By Francis Koomson, Kasoa
