Existing rules can deal with indiscipline
Advertisement
What we need is action. For example, if a Deputy High Commissioner refused an assignment to travel to represent the country because a tourist-class and not a first-class ticket was provided in accordance with the rules, the consequence should be the sack.
This was what I would have recommended to President Nkrumah as Principal Secretary in charge of the African Diplomatic Missions. And he was sure to agree whether the culprit was a political appointee or a career officer. The idea of considering such a person for ambassadorial appointment would be unthinkable at that time.
The pressures on the presidency are great. There are too many people, including deputy ministers and advisers, with not much to do parading the corridors of power. The President should be left free to consult, think and act. He can do it. He has the capacity. But he will do well to take another look at the institutions which surround him.
Before we adopted what I believe is the American system with a Chief of Staff assisting the President, we had a Civil Servant Secretary to the Cabinet, who was at the same time the Head of the Civil Service.
It saddled the office holder with a lot of work and responsibility. But he had competent senior officers to whom specific assignments were entrusted and who reported to him or took appropriate necessary action.
Yet still it was a donkey job. And so when the Acheampong regime’s second in command, Air Marshal Ashley-Lassen, asked me to take up that post I politely declined.
Despite the enormous responsibility of the Secretary to the Cabinet cum Head of the Civil Service, the system worked well.
But things have changed and we must change to accommodate the present. We should also know where we are going and what we want to accomplish.
I was confused recently when it appeared to have been assumed that a minister informed the President, when a matter was reported to the Chief of Staff. In my time, the minister informed or approached the President directly. He had time for that. Memos or communications addressed to the President might be dealt with initially by underlings like me in the Flagstaff House but on major matters the President must be informed as soon as possible. Failure to do this might even lead to removal from office.
To hold a high official position is a great responsibility. Sometimes the official has to do what is necessary and inform the Minister or President later. Sometimes even the President’s directives have to be modified either to better achieve his vision and purpose to protect him or to promote the larger national interest.
A colleague with whom I discussed such delicate issues and who was knowledgeable and courageous was Mr Ben Forjoe who has just died. I am often asked to write my memoirs to assist future public officers.
But there were many whose experiences would be more valuable today and who have gone without leaving us valuable memoirs. Ben Forjoe was one of them. He did not enrich himself or advance his position by exploiting ethnic affiliations and the President’s confidence in him. He served Kwame Nkrumah with dedication, devotion and competence.
Few wonder why Nelson Mandela never visited Ghana. Some Ghanaians who should have assisted the ANC were not competent to assess the capacity and roles of the PAC and ANC.
Besides, some trusted officials were greedy and pocketed money meant to assist freedom fighters.
They also gave wrong information to President Nkrumah who liked to hear success stories. The result was that Mandela and other ANC activists did not feel Ghana was their home and trained in Algeria and not in Ghana, as many other freedom fighters.
It was in the light of such events and incidents that I admired the integrity, competence and boldness of Ben Forjoe. He used funds which were beyond the scrutiny of the auditors for the purpose for which President Nkrumah released them.
When President Nkrumah on the basis of reports on which so much money had been spent asked Forjoe to lead armed security officers to go to Lomé and abduct former Finance Minister, K.A. Gbedema, he agreed and set forth to the border at night with a contingent of security officers.
But Ben Forjoe, a former Head of the Foreign Affairs Intelligence Bureau, appreciated the consequences of failure and decided not to cross the border. He believed it was his duty to protect the President.
He therefore asked those who said they had the Lomé security officers in their pocket to go and bring Gbedema to the border. They returned at 4 a.m., drunk and with excuses.
It would have been a terrible blow to the stature and avowed aims of President Nkrumah if Ben Forjoe had dutifully followed instructions to the letter. Incidentally when Gbedema later returned to Ghana and I asked him about the incident he laughed and said “we were waiting for them”!
I was encouraged by Ben Forjoe to think of the larger consequences of the directives of a President who was always in a hurry and constantly bubbling with ideas. I am sure men and women like Ben Forjoe still exist in Ghana.
But they cannot flourish under a system without clear values and insistence on performance. Our leaders can truly promote values under which probity and accountability will emerge if they stop reliance on fortune-seeking politicians.
Ben Forjoe did not parade his innermost beliefs. But he was religious and endeavoured to pursue that which was just and true. Each time he was impatient to continue discussions with a talkative like me he explained that he should be at the Calvary Methodist Church. I don’t know whether the Calvary Methodist Church made him or he made the church.
The few remaining old public servants like Ben Forjoe should come out to confirm that they worked under both written and unwritten rules. It should be made known that the public service had a culture which has been undermined by arbitrary appointments and promotions.
Codes of conduct were spelt out in rules and regulations but true and faithful public servants did not consult codes before they acted. They served as good and faithful public servants.
Our leaders in the various political parties can have at their disposal men and women who will serve their fellow creatures and not keep technically within codes of conduct while they enrich themselves and flout principles and values. Social and moral values are not promoted by desiccated codes of conduct which are never enforced. They are believed in and acted upon.
By K. B. Asante/Ghana