KB Asante: Voice From Afar column
We believe in ghosts and the epicurean life!
Many Ghanaians will react angrily at the suggestion that they believe in ghosts and the easy life. But how then do you explain the attitude of educated professionals and administrators towards ghosts in our established institutions?
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They discover that these ghosts are paid and proceed loudly on a major exercise to rid the payment registers of ghost names. But they leave the ghosts alone and deal with the living. They take the thumbprints of the living and harass them with other particulars while they refuse to pay them if they do not conform to their strange demands and continue with the unexamined life.
And we the people appear surprised that the ghosts, dead and alive, continue in their corrupt endeavours. The media refer to ghost names in many of our public institutions as normal news. I am not surprised that the Korle Bu Hospital features a lot in ghost names. It is, after all, the entry point of ghosts.
If we do not believe in ghosts, why do we not apprehend those who are transfigured to defraud? Ghost names do not by themselves cause loss of money. It is when the ghost turns into human beings that money is lost. The ghost must turn into an employee or worker to collect “the ghost money” on pay day.
This is the point at which we can “catch” the fraudulent turned ghost. I maintain that the payroll can be inflated one hundred times but payment is made and a loss is incurred only when living individuals collect the money for which they have not worked. Of course, the paymaster can forge signatures and collect the money. Such persons can be apprehended unless we take it that we have an incompetent police administration.
A simple way out is to request all workers to open bank accounts into which payments can be made. Banks are now at most places, including even the rural areas. Such a system will deal with “payments to the dead”. It is sometimes argued that some of the ghosts are real ghosts, in that they are dead persons. But no unauthorised person can withdraw the money of a dead person from the bank. Letters of administration are needed to deal with the bank assets of a deceased customer. If any person forges a signature or illegally withdraws money from a dead person’s account, he or she is guilty of a crime and should be dealt with.
Arrangements can be made with a bank so that all salary payments after death are returned to the Accountant-General or the paying institution. We should try to understand ourselves and do away with what weighs us down and keeps us backward. As our own Professor Aryeetey tells us, we cannot continue to blame the legacy of colonialism for our problems. The ruling elite (and I am not without blame) has a lot to answer. They consume too much of the economic growth achieved, even when they operate within the law. And as they eat and drink, the poor remain poorer and without employment to improve their station in life.
We seem to have achieved political freedom without the intellectual freedom to think through issues and confront the past. For example, we rightly established the Merchant Bank to deal with special aspects of banking needed for development. But we do not have the requisite intellectual determination to maintain the objectives and purposes of the bank. We appoint too many allowance-collecting epicureans as directors who bring the bank into distress. In the rescue attempt, we the people are more concerned about the ghost of corruption than about questioning those who brought the bank to its knees so that we can fashion a better future.
Another example is that North of the country, we hear about so many things wrong with the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) scheme. We correctly came to the conclusion sometime ago that the huge savannah area needed not be a hindrance to growth and development. We established the SADA. We saw an area of stagnation as a source of regeneration and plenty. I first went to the North in 1945 and nearly suffocated myself with guinea fowls, chickens and the like. I was looking forward to regaling myself with the stuff in my old age. I also looked forward to the reforestation we began long ago to tame the harmattan. But it appears that despite the flood of expert advice and funds, there is not much to show. This is another opportunity to find out what happened in the past and put our young men and women to the task. We should spare the country the exploits of desiccated, spent forces.
Corruption is a problem but best tackled, in our case, by dealing with those who go against the rules and procedures. Ghosts cannot stand the scrutiny of administrative rules.
The epicureans who seek office “to chop small” will be denied the opportunity to make us poor. And Ghana is not a poor country. But we should get rid of the ghosts and epicureans without conscience.