How Ghana missed the Mo Ibrahim award this year

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

October 21, 2009

The Mo Ibrahim award, in reality, is the culmination of the African political leadership games. Call it the political award for the entire continent. Unlike the eleven soccer players that represented Ghana for the recent U20 world cup, this contest demands only one selected contestant per country.

The contributions and achievements of all were to be considered and the prize awarded.

In consideration was Ghana’s contesting candidate former President J. A. Kufuor. The other named contestants were - Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.  The respect impact in their countries of origin was under scrutiny.

All indications before the award were that Kufuor was the strongest candidate. For some reason, no winner was declared this time.

It was Kufuor’s prestige and his achievements in office that could have won the award.  The odds were in his favor, except for the background noises emanating from Ghana during the Prize Committee’s deliberations.

And here, the ill feelings of some Ghanaians took hold of their senses.  For some in Ghana, they saw the prize as a show to benefit just one person, Kufuor. 

And there never was the consideration that ultimately the award would have benefited the entire country. To achieve their limited goal, a convenient backdrop of discontent in Ghana was created while the deliberations were going on.

The backdrop falsely claimed how undeserving Kufuor was for the prize.  Doubts got seeded in the minds of the Prize Committee.  Other fortuitous events also helped to solidify the discontent against Kufuor.

The case of the M & J scandal was an example.  And this might have given the Prize Committee formed for the award some apprehension and a reason to put a pause on considering Kufuor.   The unfortunate reason for the pause being that he was not above corruption.

The temptation to question Kufuor’s integrity was made strong by the M&J case.  But the reasoning was unfair because the case had nothing to do with Kufuor.  

It was entirely an NDC, the successor government’s problem, but the resonance from the case affected Kufuor’s chances all the same.

Kufuor as a target was unfair.  Similar suspicions could have affected the medal chances for Mbeki and Obasanjo in their respective countries.

There were rumors of corruption in both Nigeria and South Africa after Obansanjo and Mbeki, just as there was in Ghana after Kufuor .  

But what needed to be known was the fact that these two presidents were succeeded in government by members of their own parties.

As such, the likelihood that fellow party members would have pursued a baseless, relentlessly corruption charges against them would be very remote.

Yet Obasanjop and Mbeki also missed the award too; which makes the assumption that Kufuor could have won the prize even stronger, were it not for the uniqueness of the political situation at home.

In Ghana, the opposition party, the NDC, that succeeded Kufuor was bent on nullifying his reputation and to annihilate that of the NPP, his party, too.  They had no regard for propping up the opposition.  The Ibrahim Award would have run contrary to the NDC’s ambition.

For example, there was this negative atmosphere created by the Ghana@50 Secretariat.s hearings.

The NDC put up the suspicion that a lot of money was squandered by this secretariat set up by the Kufuor’s administration to administer the 50th year anniversary of Ghana’s independence.

Surprisingly, the Ghana@50 enterprise made profit, according to Dr. Wereko-Brobbey, the Chief Executive of the secretariat.  He gave evidence of a huge cash profit made from the event; something historically uncommon for government established enterprises in Ghana to achieve.

The response by NDC inquiry team, following Dr, Wereko-Brobbey, was not immediately heard by the public. But why was the Ghana@50 balance sheet, a tangible asset of the enterprise, not examined before the open public inquiry into the purporting crime? 

This question indicated the propaganda nature of the enquiry into the affairs of the Kufuor appointed secretariat.

Still, did the Ghana@50 secretariat show profit or not?  

The commission should be morally bound to acknowledge the result.  If Dr. Wereko-Brobbey’s statement was correct then the officials of the Ghana@50 secretariat ought to be congratulated for job well done; rather than to continue with the charade and hope to find an incidental chance to ruin reputations.

Another NPP government act under inquiry in Ghana while the Mo Ibrahim Prize was being considered was the Vodafone deal with GhanaTelecom.

The value of GhanaTelecom in 2004 was $400 million US Dollars, set by a competent financial organization, ECOBANK.  In 2007, the Kufuor administration sold part of the shares of GhanaTelecom to Vodafone for $900 million US Dollars.

The problem for the NDC government, in a nutshell, was why GhanaTelecom should be sold for $900 million when there was an offer to purchase it for $1.2 billion US Dollars. The difference in the sum, to them, meant that there was underpayment; an underhand deal between buyer and officials of the NPP administration.

Forgotten in the NDC calculation for corruption was the issue of competence.  To run a national asset such as GhanaTelecom, a critical public service such as telecommunications for the benefit of the entire population of Ghana. The criteria for the award winner need necessarily not be the highest bidder.

Ironically, this NDC government forgot that it was its own administration of the 90s that first sold the same GhanaTelecom to Malaysia Telecom for the lesser amount of $150 million, only for the new owner to show its lack of competence.

These were the inquiries that went on as backdrops while the Mo Ibrahim Award for Kufuor was being considered.

There was not a single signal of encouragement or support from the NDC government for Kufuor to the world all this time.  

By October 15, 2009, The Vodafone Commission was ready with a report, strategically timed before the announcement of the Ibrahim Award. “Vodafone's Ghana Telecom deal labelled illegal.”

“A government-appointed investigator believes the company underpaid for its involvement in the privatisation of the country's third-largest mobile phone network,” wrote the Guardian.   

Under these circumstances of mistrust and uncertainty of the character of Kufuor's administration, who could have doubted the outcome of the award?

Imagine Kufuor as a player on the Ghana U20 World Cup final with Brazil, and a red card for penalty was handed to him. Then consider the fact that a refree from his own country gave him the card!

Kufuor can still yet win the Ibrahim Award, since he has two years left for consideration. But will the relentless investigations of his administration ever stop before the end of the two years?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 21, 2009

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