About five years ago, Ghana was hailed as the country to watch. Pres. Obama had visited the country in 2009. It had discovered oil and in 2011 chalked up a 14.4 percent rate of growth– one of the highest in the world at that time. Its stardom, however was very short-lived. The economy slowed considerably to less than 5% rate of growth in 2015 and is now asking the IMF for a bailout. What happened? Government blunder, corruption, reckless profligacy, among others, sank Ghana’s economic fortunes
Ghana’s government finances are a shambles. Expenditures have careened out of control A multitude of parallel institutions and bloated bureaucracy have created a huge government workforce of over 700,000 workers and a wage bill that consumes 70 percent of the budget. We have 97 cabinet ministers and deputy ministers. In addition, we have ministers of state at the presidency, presidential staffers, advisors, Council of State, etc. How many advisors does the president need? Then we have at each ministry, principal secretaries, deputy principal secretaries, assistant deputy principal secretaries, etc. Each one of them must have:
• A government bungalow
• A Pajero (SUV),
• A saloon car,
• A garden boy,
• A cook,
• A day watchman,
• A night watchman,
• Security guard,
• Utility bills paid by the government
Many of these perks were created during the colonial period to entice Europeans – say Englishmen – to serve in the colonies and clearly made no sense to retain them after independence. But tfhe whiteman enjoyed them; so too must we
In fact, there are some high government officials who for the past 25 years have not paid a single pesewa in rent or utility bills. Most infuriating is that, at the end of their service, they want the government bungalows sold to them at fire sale prices with loans from the same government! Haba!
Ever so hungry for revenue, the government taxes anything that moves: petrol taxes and IWHUUM! 40% increase! Water rates – that is, if you are lucky to have it – KETCHUUM! 60% increase! Mobile phone rates KABOOOM! A whopping 80% increase! Then there is airport tax, vampire tax, and even latrine fees
So what happened to all the revenue that was expected to flow from the new-found oil wells? Squandered even before the oil wells came on tap. Part was mortgaged to secure a $3 billion loan from China. Don’t ask what they did with that the loan.
So now the deficit is 12% of GDP, which is outrageous. Since they have exhausted all potential sources of revenue, the only other option they have is to cut government spending. But this option is politically risky. Cutting spending may involve sacking civil servants and ending some government programs, which may alienate key political constituencies and supporters. Fitch, an international credit rating agency, twice downgraded the country’s bond rating to a notch above junk status.. Hence the knock at the IMF’s door for a bailout. http://bit.ly/UKEfpj
We have a bloated bureaucracy in Ghana and the size of the government has grown so rapidly that it is suffocating the economy. In 1997, there were 88 cabinet and regional ministers plus their deputy ministers in Ghana with a population of 25 million. In 2004, the number had reached 92 but now it has shot up to 97. [The US, with a population of 300 million, has 40 secretaries and assistant secretaries.]
Ghana’s public sector is riddled with overspending, wasteful practices, willful extravagance with public funds, and financial irregularities and profligacy. Too many ministries and government agencies mean overlapping jurisdiction and functions and soaring government expenditures Ghost workers abound – over 15,000 – on government payrolls and their salaries collected by living workers. Judges are on the take, some caught demanding bribes <http://bit.ly/1RfooZs>
The supply of electricity, water and other social services is spasmodic. And it seems nobody is held accountable. True, the Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor, resigned, falling over his own sword. He promised to fix the power problem by the end of 2015, or else he would resign. To be fair, he can’t be blamed for the electricity outages, which dates all the way back to the Rawlings era.
Across Africa, there has been a grotesque failure of governments to increase generating capacity to meet exponentially rising demand for electricity due to exploding populations, increased use of electronics, iPads, mobile devices, etc. Even South Africa suffers from load shedding and brownouts.
Even then, Dr Donkor could have refused to resign or Pres. Mahama could have refused to accept his resignation and there was nothing anybody could do about that. But let me be cynical in this posting. Here is a fact: the President can loot the Treasury and put, say $17 million, in a Swiss Bank account and there is nothing anybody can do about that,.DITTO for several members of the ruling elite. What happened to Alfred Woyome?
You may huff and puff or howler all you want and the newspapers can print all the corruption scandal they want ; it won’t change anything. One or two officials may resign or receive a slap on their wrists and reshuffled to other posts and that’s just about it. So why does the rot continue and why are we so helpless in stopping it?
The answer is this: The political system in Ghana has no institutional checks and balances. Some Africans use to lament that If only we have a strong leader – like Buhari, Kagame, etc. But that is only wishful thinking, displaying a woeful lack of understanding of the problem.
Recall what Pres. Obama said in Ghana in July 2009: “Africa doesn’t need strongmen; it needs strong INSTITUTIONS.” The problem we have in Ghana and many other African countries is that we do not have strong institutions.
For effective checks and balances, there are 7 critical institutions:
1. An independent judiciary
2. An independent electoral commission
3. An independent and free media
4. An independent central bank
5. An autonomous Parliament
6. An efficient civil service
7. A neutral and professional security forces
Each one of these should be able to check a president who is out of control. For example, if the president is a crook, or flouts the Constitution, he can be impeached by Parliament. But the 1992 Constitution, created a very powerful Executive with control over ALL the institutions which are supposed to check the arbitrary use of his own powers Very nice Under that Constitution, the cockroach are the top appoints,
• All the Supreme Court judges,
• The Governor of the central bank,
• The Speaker of Parliament
• The Commander of the security forces
• Some members of the media commission
• 7 of the 11 members of the police commission
• 15 of the 24 members of the Council of State,
• 33% of all the members of District Assemblies
So how does Parliament impeach the president when the Speaker is appointed by the very same president? Or how does the Electoral Commissioner tell the president that he has lost an election when he’s appointed by the same president? Or how does one stop looting of the treasury when the governor of the central bank is appointed by the president?
This kind of lunacy became apparent in Nigeria in February 2014 When Lamidu Sanusi, the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. reported that some $20 billion in in oil revenue was missing, it was he, the governor, who was sacked Pres. Goodluck Jonathan for financial recklessness and misconduct! Lord have Mercy! A similar case occurred in Ghana in 2013. When Martin Amidu, the former Atty. Gen., refused to authorize payment to Woyome on suspicion of fraud, it was he,Amidu, who was sacked.
Now tell me this: So who checks the president if he steals election or loots the central bank? So where are the checks and balances in this system? Smart, huh? We should have our heads examined! With all our high-powered education, we saw nothing wrong with that idiotic 1992 Constitution ? In fact, we crowed that Ghana’s 1992 Constitution was a blend of the American and French constitutions. Imagine.
Even the backward traditional system of government does not put up with this kind of buffoonery. Even they understand the meaning of conflict of interest . For example, the Council of Elders is a check against a bad chief in can remove such a chief. But a chief cannot appoint or remove any of the Councilors. It would be sheer stupidity to have a chief appoint members of a Council, which can remove him. But this is precisely the kind of lunacy was what the 1992 Constitution dished out to Ghanaians.
OK In 2010, we came to our senses and realized that there was something wrong, so we set up a Constitutional Review Commission and after two years of work, it came up with its recommendations. And guess what it did: it gave the recommendations to the same powerful Executive, whose wings it wanted to clip, to approve of them! Lunacy triple squared.
It is like coming up a plan to make your house burglar proof, after being robbed several times in the past. Then you give the plan to the same burglar will robbed in the past, for approval. Makes a whole lot of sense, doesn’t it How did this come about? It happened because we allowed half educated soldier – Rawlings – to dictate the type of Constitution he liked for Ghana! We had it completely backward.
Look, if you want to write a good Constitution for an African country, you do not allow the head of state to come anyway near the constitutional writing process. Rather, you assume that the state is necessarily evil and the cockroach who heads it is a potential dictator and a bandit. Then you put in place the necessary measures, checks and balances to prevent him from becoming a thief or a despot. Basic common sense. The more power the state has, th least free are its citizens.
If you think this political philosophy is copied from abroad, check Africa’s own traditional system. Where some ethnic groups such as the Somali and IJgbo were so distrustful of the state that they chose not to have leader at all. Elsewhere, those whb chose to have leaders, hemmed them in with injunctions upon injunctions and taboos. For example, they were not allowed to meet foreign visitors alone. Here is my favorite one, the Yoruba Oona cannot venture out of his palace , except under the cover of darkness. He can be a dictator if he wants to. He can venture out of his palace and bark orders all he wants but his people would be fast asleep – snoring. Smart people, do Yoruba.
Here are other injunctions in our traditional system, a chief must swear an oath of office. For example, among the injunctions, are the following:
Do not abuse and insult us
Do not go after other people’s wives
Do not be a drunkard,
Do not steal our money,
A new chief must swear to this oath and if he breaks any of the injunctions he is removed immediately, not after four years in office. But note something: This oath is not dictated or written according to their whims of a Rawlings because it wouldn’t make sense. Imagine a chief saying, “Give me all the powers and I won’t abuse them, I won’t steal your money, and I won’t go after your women.” Even illiterate peasants wouldn’t fall for that But that is precisely what we did We allowed Rawlings t o do what he liked
with the 1992 Constitution, written according to his dictates in creating a very powerful executive. In 1993, his security agents dumped human waste in the offices of newspapers critical of him. Nobody was held to account
Same thing happened elsewhere in much of postcolonial Africa. Instead of treating the head of state as a potential despot or thief, we hailed him as a MESSIAH Because you want independence for the country or saved it from some catastrophe. Ghanaians used to refer to refer to Rawlings as “J J” – Junior Jesus. He was not the problem; we were Then we gave the Messiah all the powers he demanded. And when he started abusing those powers, we looked like complete idiots without any countervailing powers to check him. Look at Mugabe in Zimbabwe, dos Santos in Angola, etc
So how do you solve the problem? In the case of Ghana, the entire Constitution will have to be rewritten with the president made a servant of the people, and not the other way around. More importantly, Parliament, should be separated from and made more powerful than the executive. If the president misbehaves, Parliament ought to be able to cut off his shua! (smile) The parliament that we currently have is toothless, useless in rubber stamp.
Changing the Constitution would require two thirds majority in parliament, which neither party is likely to have in the foreseeable future. Parliament can set up a bipartisan commission. But then why would the speaker make such an effort when he is appointed by the all-powerful president? This is one of the ugliest and despicable legacies of the Rawlings regime to Ghana.
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