Citizen vigilante trudges along
At the close of 2011, I attracted the ire of a number of government functionaries for impugning the integrity of President Mills in my comments on the matter of the illegal payments to Alfred Agbesi Woyome.
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I questioned how that amount of money could have been taken out of the Consolidated Fund without the express permission of the President. I was torn into shreds by virulent and vitriolic attacks, including a comment that I was a below average student who could not qualify for university education and thus ended up at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.
Thanks to the selfless crusade of a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin A.B.K. Amidu, the Supreme Court has ruled that the payment to Woyome was unlawful and unconstitutional. Ghanaians are thus free to proffer their comments on the matter and pass judgement on the conduct of the government and certain appointees who spurned the opportunity to safeguard the national interest.
Recently at the African Biblical Leadership Initiative Conference in Accra, participants were told of how a claim filed by an individual was left unchallenged as the Attorney-General’s Department declined to file a defence to contest the matter.
The court was thus left to use its own understanding of basic contract law to dismiss the suit. There was a thunderous applause to underline the participants appreciation for the judge, who stood up for the interest of Ghanaians against a potential fraudster.
We must applaud and congratulate Mr Amidu on his selfless crusade in prosecuting his agenda to recover to the state millions of dollars recklessly dished out to individuals who did not deserve and had not merited the payments. In the same manner, we need to haunt and flush out from public office individuals whose negligence or indiscretion and open connivance resulted in the state paying for the fraudulent and baseless claims.
In one of the judgements of the Supreme Court concerning these unconstitutional payments, one of the eminent justices had cause to use very harsh words to describe such public officials as having “created, looted and shared,” very disturbing and uncomplimentary words that should make any government sit up.
The court is reported to have suggested to the General Legal Council to take disciplinary action against some lawyers involved in the matters surrounding some of the fraudulent payments.
One of the principal characters in the dramatic plot involving the payment of the unlawful money to Woyome is the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Ebo Barton Odro.
In other jurisdictions, he would never have been appointed to that high office in the face of the evidence about his personal involvement in the payments. Not only was he reported to have acted contrary to the directives given by his superior to also stop the payment, he is reported to have formally written to say that the state did not have a defence against the claim brought up by Woyome.
Now that the highest court of the land has determined that there was no legal basis for the payment of the money, the obvious thing is that the former deputy attorney-general acted either in error or deliberately against the interest of the people of this country.
In that wise, he can no longer be entrusted with public responsibility. Therefore, if Parliament wants Ghanaians to have any trust and confidence in the institution as a buffer for democracy, then it has to persuade Mr Barton Odro to resign, failing which the House should remove him.
This is imperative because if he were to be nominated and vetted for ministerial appointment, some members of the vetting committee could have capitalised on the development and challenged his integrity to serve as such. However, in our circumstance, qualification to Parliament is the basis for qualification for appointment as a minister of state.
As Ghanaians, we are proud of our democracy. We need to carry this beyond words into functional deeds. That is why we should begin to write into our public life dictionary the necessity for public officials to voluntarily resign or be removed from office when they are found wanting or culpable in their dealings with the public.
That all the 11 members of the Supreme Court were unanimous in their decision that the payment to Woyome was unconstitutional, must inform us to commend Mr Amidu and condemn all those connected with the negotiations which culminated in the payments, for as Proverbs 17:15 says“ acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent, the Lord detests them both.” Further to that “the wicked man earns deceptive wages; but he who grows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” Proverbs 11:18.