In such a relatively short time another 365 days have come and gone and today, we are three days into a fresh year – 2015. We can all agree that the year 2014, which has just past, was a very eventful year, and while many would want to remember it and laugh, others would remember it and cry.
For our politicians, particularly those in government, for varied obvious reasons, I’m not sure of those who would laugh and those who would cry; but definitely some would cry by merely remembering 2014. Some were even seen on television crying when the year had not ended; whether for their guilt or innocence in some corruption charges levelled against them.
Many of us also shed tears in 2014 for our loved ones, friends, and colleagues who passed on to glory. Others also cried like babies and may still cry because they realised and felt the frightful nature of delegates at political party congresses.
Owusu Afriyie, Boateng Gyan
Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary saw the reality that delegates must be feared instead of ghosts, when delegates massively voted him out of office when indeed during his campaigns he was assured of a resounding victory.
And just before 2014 ended, almighty Yaw Boateng Gyan, the former National Democratic Congress (NDC) National Organiser, tasted the frightful blow of delegates when they uprooted him from his office, not allowing him to move into the new NDC gargantuan office, which I’m sure he was very instrumental in building.
Similarly, former NPP Chairman, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, and his NDC counterpart, Dr Kwabena Adjei, were massively booted out of their respective offices in 2014, despite their fervent promises to the delegates that what they failed to do for them while they were chairmen of their respective parties would be done if they were retained.
For me, there were two promises that were very notable in 2014. Incidentally, both came from my friend and the President of our republic, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama. He had long made a promise which he rephrased many times throughout the year to the effect that he was to eliminate corruption, or to use his own words, “to fight corruption.”
Many Ghanaians were inspired by the promise. However, with all the 365 days in 2014 gone, one is yet to see how Mr President fought corruption in 2014, and what results he has on his balance sheet to be carried forward to 2015.
Did his government retrieve the money Alfred Agbesi Woyome was ordered to repay? Following the massive corruption which was exposed at the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA), where huge sums of money had been paid to people and institutions which did no job for the state, a series of investigations were launched by the government and its agencies.
President’s order
Based on the reports from the investigations, the President in 2013 ordered the Attorney General to retrieve all the monies, but sadly, to date, a mere GH¢14.5 million has been retrieved. What is even most disturbing about the whole issue is, how can we fight corruption when people found to have stolen state funds are allowed to give their own flexible terms of repayment? What kind of punishment is that?
Also, while Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, then Minister of Youth and Sports, was implicated in the corruption scandal which was associated with Ghana’s participation in the 2014 World Cup, the President, who is fighting corruption, merely transferred him from the ministry to his office, still as a minister. Why Mr Afriyie Ankrah is not on interdiction to allow proper investigations into the case is worrying, and this does not give the President any marks at all for his promised fight against corruption.
Again, we were all around when Mr Kofi Portuphy, holding a public office as the National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), never resigned from his office yet went ahead to contest a national position in the NDC. His deputy, Anita De-Sosoo, also combined her office of NDC National Women’s Organiser until very recently when she left the organiser job for a Vice-Chairman office in the NDC, still holding a public office.
Are we saying, therefore, that in Ghana, corruption is only when people steal money or use state funds illegally? Our 1992 Constitution requires people occupying public offices to resign before engaging in party politics, including contesting elections for political offices. Therefore, if a party’s national chairmanship and national women’s organiser position are not political offices, what could they be? Please, let no one tell me that some people did the same under Rawlings, Kufuor and Mills’ administrations hence the practice is acceptable.
Let me jump to the second promise, which I’m sure, dear reader, you are very familiar with. Right from the beginning of 2014, Mr President made promises upon promises, sometimes giving precise times ‘dumsor’ will end – March, May, June, you can keep on counting to December, but there was still dumsor up to December 31, 2014.
Dumsor worries
Much as I was very worried for my friend, surely, he was also very worried – first about the fact that the country still stays in darkness, and also industries, big and small are closing down. His other worry, I presume, was his incessant promises about when to end dumsor. After his own reflections, he publicly announced on a Metro TV programme on November 27, 2014, that his government could not tell when dumsor will end but was “working around the clock to address the situation”. Then he made another promise that he has “learnt to not make any more promises” on the energy crisis.
I applauded the President for being honest with Ghanaians and telling us that he and his government did not know the time the ‘dumsor’ crisis would end. I also applauded him for making another promise, which I considered the promise of all his promises – not to make any more promises. That was November 27, 2014.
Broken promise
To my surprise, the President has broken his November 27 promise only a month after he made it. On December 31, 2014 at a watch-night service in Accra, the President made yet another big promise - “The year 2015 will be one filled with fruitfulness, joy, peace, good health and development.... It will be one in which we will banish darkness from our land and put an end to dumsor forever.” He added that to banish dumsor in 2015 is an “interesting prophetic pronouncement.”
Mr President, you promised not to make any promise again, but perhaps inspired by the Holy Spirit when you mounted the preaching lectern, you not only made a promise, one of your usual ones, but this time a prophecy; and Ghanaians will be anxiously awaiting the fulfilment of this prophecy.
The author is a Political Scientist, and Media and Communication Expert.
