There is 'method in his slowness'
I have been pondering over a news report earlier this week about criticisms of the Government’s approach to combating corruption by some anti-graft campaigners.
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What attracted my attention was the part of the salvo attributed to Daniel Batidam. Mr Batidam reportedly said that President Akufo-Addo “is busily making promises instead of getting to work on existing frameworks”.
Speaking on a current affairs programme, PM Express, on the Joy News channel on MultiTV on Monday, Mr Batidam added: “You can’t fight corruption by just making statements … Every public policy student knows that the questions you must ask every policy maker is ‘how are you going to do the things you say you are going to do’.
Mr Batidam, was appointed in 2014 as Adviser on Governance and Corruption to former President John Mahama and is also a member of the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption. He said it is unfortunate that the President has failed to support the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
“We have been on a certain path for some time and I was very, very sad and disappointed when in the President’s first opportunity to engage the media [he failed to mention] the word NACAP, in terms of how he intends to address corruption in this country,”
NACAP, is described as a 10-year blueprint for fighting corruption that started in 2015. It was formulated based on consensus with various stakeholders and unanimously approved by Parliament as a working document to tackle corruption in the country.
Contributing to the discussion, Programmes Manager at the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Awelana-Addah, said the President must investigate allegations of corruption levelled against some government officials because that will prove his resolve to fighting corruption.
I think that people who fault the President on being slow to act, whether it’s in delivering jobs or acting on corruption cases, are not being fair to his New Patriotic Party government which came into office in January.
As a former GII head and former presidential Adviser on Corruption, is Mr Batidam saying that taking time to work out the ‘how to do things’ isn’t a good method? Well, did “the existing frameworks” come into being out of the blue? Did the NACAP framers not spend time drafting their position paper before finalizing the document?
The unceasing revelations about shady deals indicate that existing strategies to stem graft could either not be implemented or were not effective. Surely, that means a lot of work needs to be done to strengthen the weaknesses.
Does President Akufo-Addo look like someone who came into office without a plan?
Even if the President were bound to work with the NACAP strategies, should he not take time to see how best they are compatible with his government’s plans for fighting corruption?
Also, it should also not be forgotten that tackling corruption is only one of the countless issues and problems confronting the President, all needing careful study and consultation before decisions are taken.
This is why I find it difficult to agree with those who think that President Akufo-Addo is being too slow. Anyhow, if ‘slow’ leads to attaining the objective, why not?
Anyway, the fact that the law has not yet caught up with those suspected of serious crimes against the people of Ghana doesn’t mean that they have won or are at peace. Most likely the stress of waiting for the expected summons, wondering what one’s fate will be, is also a psychological torture, perhaps almost as harrowing as standing trial.
I wonder, too, what Mr Batidam meant by “we have been on a certain path for some time”. Is it this same “path” that was not able to check the staggering cases of corruption during the Mahama administration, despite Mr Batidam’s input, and now coming to light?
In recent days, notably the Social Security and National Insurance ICT contract scandal has dominated headlines, leading to angry calls for heads to roll.
The Daily Graphic of last Saturday, August 26, highlighted “denials and contradictions (by) two former chairmen of the Board of Trustees of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust over who signed an Information and Communications Technology contract that has ballooned from $34 million to $72 million.
“The contract is said not to have benefitted SSNIT as expected.
“The two former board chairmen – Mr Kwame Peprah (from 2009 to 2013) and Professor Joshua Alabi whose tenure expired on January 7, 2017 – are distancing themselves from the contract for SSNIT’s Operational Business Suite (OBS) system which has generated public outcry over its cost and inefficiency ….
Asked when the contract was signed, Prof Alabi said “it was a question that would best be answered by his predecessor, Mr Kwame Peprah, or the immediate past Director- General, Mr Ernest Thompson.
Intriguingly, a statement attributed to an aide of Mr Peprah posed the following question: “Why is the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ernest Thompson, defending the contract and the immediate past chairman of the board saying otherwise?” the Graphic reported.
Understandably, SSNIT contributors and SSNIT pensioners can’t help feeling betrayed and cheated, to put it mildly. Considering that employers are even penalised if they fail to pay employees’ contributions and pensioners have to make do with monthly pittances, it doesn’t bear thinking that some highly-placed SSNIT officials do their work in such a questionable manner.
Yet, it has been proven time and again that rushing to prosecute can lead to disaster in court because fraudsters can go to cunning lengths to cover their tracks. How would people feel if because of a rush to take a case to court, the court decides that under the existing laws those viewed as prime suspects can’t be convicted?
In any case, as stated above, I imagine that for suspects the wait for the knock on the door by the law is not a time of tranquillity for them.
And I’m inclined to believe that even if true that President Akufo-Addo is being too slow to commence action, there is ‘method in his slowness’.