Should heads of public institutions have any politics?
I believe that any thoughtful person should have some politics. And his or her politics should involve the ideas and beliefs about the essential role of government. Should the role be that of a referee who maintains law and order among antagonistic societal groups or should the government seriously and actively promote economic and social development to liberate the individual and create national unity and identity?
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Without any such ideas, a head of a public institution becomes a technocrat, perhaps a good one, but without that true purpose and passion which inspires subordinates and which promotes national progress.
It is natural for a person with strong political views to join a group or party to promote a particular political agenda. Active participation in such a group makes it difficult for a government to collaborate with such a person, especially if the government has embraced a diametrically opposite political viewpoint.
Governments ,therefore, tend to refrain from appointing persons with contrary political views to high official positions. But the practice of unearthing political orientation or views before appointments to high official positions should be applied with caution in a country such as Ghana.
Ghanaians are resourceful and talented people. But we do not have all the experts we need and it is unwise to appoint mediocrities to key positions because they have the right politics. The government should, however, be enabled to work with people it can trust. Civil servants and some high officials were ,therefore, required to be neutral in politics.They were not supposed to be open members of political parties.
This practice has not been followed over the years. Governments have appointed members of their party to the position of chief director and other high office in the civil service. In my view, the service has consequently been emaciated, its culture dented and its role blurred. Ministers do not seem to have the benefit of considered advice based on past experience and previous consequences of government action. To bridge the gap in knowledge and expertise, we have engaged a plethora of deputy ministers, aides and high officials who appear to have become a law unto themselves and whose utterances often embarrass the government.
It is not only the present government which is reaping the results of past parochial practices. Previous governments have been weakened by party-induced and haphazard appointments. It is sad for this to occur while the knowledge and calibre of high officials in the system have greatly increased since my time.
While civil servants and similar officials should keep their political views and affiliations to themselves, we should know the political views of those recommended for certain high appointments. We do not have a gay-rights issue at the moment. But the President in today’s Ghana would do well not to appoint a Chief Justice who believes that the human rights of gays are violated by the present legal and social norms. There are other areas where the law may be affected by political and moral views. An area where political views have direct influence is finance. I was intrigued when a distinguished law-maker argued that the newly appointed Governor of the Bank of Ghana has a known political orientation and therefore should not have been appointed.
I ,however, believe that the Governor of the Bank of Ghana should have some politics. He should know the implications of measures taken to reduce inflation for instance. The measures may achieve the desired result but the poverty of the people may increase.
At university, we calculated what the effects of 0.1 per cent increase in certain taxes would have on the economy. The calculated results were not far from what happened. I discussed this and other matters with Dr Amon Nikoi when he was Governor of the Bank of Ghana. He was of the view that we should not simply follow what was done in developed countries. He was a political animal and he believed that the bright young men in the bank should not be concerned solely with studies and calculations which were not of immediate use and