Professionals, not politicians hold key to Ghana’s challenges
The solution to Ghana’s problem lies not with the politician but with professionals who live up to their professional standards and ethics. This is especially true for those of us in the public sector, mostly with jobs guaranteed till we are 60. No politician can do anything wrong, especially engage in corruption, without the active participation of a professional. It could be a civil servant, an accountant, a lawyer, an engineer, a surveyor, an architect, a project manager, etc.
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Also, when it comes to using the media negatively, the politician will have to get the tacit and active involvement of professionals – journalists.
Yet, we all are quick to blame the politician, who runs (in the case of Ghana and many others) a four-year cycle. This is not to absolve politicians of part of the blame. I believe, however, that professionals have the solutions to the challenges we have in Ghana.
Living up to professional ethics
If all professionals, no matter their field, decide to live up to their professional ethics and apply what they studied in school to the best of their knowledge, Ghana would surely be a first world country within a very short time.
The professional bodies – and you could include even student bodies such as National Union of Ghana Students (NUGs) – have lost their space in the development construct of Ghana. In the past, they played great roles in the country’s transformation, but we do not see this in recent times?
Most of them have become either politically partisan or a pale shadow of themselves to the extent that they are no longer able to publicly articulate independent professional opinions on national issues.
Fear of being tagged
Sometimes too, the professional bodies may be independent, but merely afraid that they will be tagged with political party leanings.
Because of these challenges, most of the professional bodies are unable to hold their members to account. Even where some leaders are bold to bring an ethically deviant member to book, other members come questioning such leaders on how they expect the punished member to survive.
Excuse
But these challenges are no excuse for the lameness of professional bodies. We have to go back to our leadership role and drive the change that we all seek in Ghana. An example of such role is that played by the Association of Recognised Professional Bodies of lawyers, teachers, engineers, surveyors, nurses, teachers and doctors and university students in opposition to the Union Government in the 1970s.
Most of the professionals who are the gateways to the wrong actions of politicians belong to these professional bodies. Why don’t the professional bodies hold their members to account? If professional bodies hold their members to account and assume their proper role, they can help to correct a lot of wrongs to make the country a better place.
For instance, why should we be calling a minister when a newly constructed road develops potholes a few months after it has been inaugurated? Shouldn’t the Ghana Institution of Engineers be chasing the project engineer for the shoddy work done? According to the President of the institution, “there are no bad contractors; there are only bad engineers.” As an engineer, I agree with him.
Who designed and gave the specifications of the road? Who supervised the project and who certified the works as completed according to specifications? Definitely, it was not the Roads and Highways Minister, but an engineer. So why will the media not call up the engineers for the project rather than minister?
The examination leakages that we now experience, even at the Basic Education Certificate of Education (BECE) level, have the active involvement of a premier group of professionals, teachers. Where are the professional bodies of teachers? Why are they not holding their members to account?
We hear arguments by the political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), about project cost, schedule (time) and sometimes scope, with one party accusing the other of inflating the cost with the accused calling the accuser “political quantity surveyors”. Where are the professional quantity surveyors and project managers? Why don’t we hear their professional views? Why will the Project Management Institute Ghana not take on these issues and give us their professional views?
It is high time we professionals were made to keep our credentials only by passing some minimum test of our professionalism and ethical standards. Output and impact of projects and works should be part of the criteria for renewal of our credentials.
Formalised peer review
Also, the professional bodies should encourage formalised peer review of the works of their members. This will also improve the performance of our professionals and that of our country.
We give the politicians too much credit and make them easy targets and hide behind that to perpetuate wrong. I am calling on all professionals to take their rightful place in the development of our nation. Support the politicians to do what is right. If we all are allies in doing right and will not acquiesce to wrongdoing, as happens in most instances, Ghana will be on the road to improvement.
To paraphrase Mr Ivor Greenstreet at the Institute of Economic Affairs Encounter with flag-bearers, he said after all Ghanaians were either Christians or Muslims, so if we would all live according to the teachings of the Bible and Quran, we would not need anti-corruption laws. But we will not, and that is why apart from the laws that have to be enforced, we will need professionals to be professionals and have their associations hold them to account.
I am a perpetual optimist, so I believe there is hope for the future for our country, but we need to change the way professionals go about the business of their professions.