|
There will always be a tomorrow
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
October 26, 2009
Nothing can be truer than this statement, especially if
you consider that there has always been a tomorrow since
creation. And there will always be one until the end;
that is if you know the exact date.
But the tomorrow talked about by Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani,
Chief of Staff and Minister of Presidential Affairs of
the past NPP administration, when he appeared before the
Ghana@50 Commission last Friday, was one of a different
hue.
It was the tomorrow of political inquiry and
vindictiveness; a foray into your deeds while in office
by a political opponent now in power.
Often, the inquiry has little to do with the merit or
demerit of your acts. According to Mr. Mpiani, it is
driven mostly by the sheer force of a national pastime
described as the “pull him down (PHD) syndrome;” a
curious mind that is used by malcontents to undermine
the successes of the achievers in our society.
While a true inquiry into public acts of malfeasance may
be necessary, the practice of late has become
vindictive, cynical, and a perpetual tool for the
persecution of political enemies.
Mr. Mpiani's grandmother had been aware of the PHD
syndrome at work for years back. When she learned that
her grandson Kwadwo was heading for a political career,
she cautioned him about "a tomorrow" when your political
opponents, for some reason, would want to look into your
past to enable them to demand their pound of flesh.
If Mr. Mpiani didn’t realize the full force of his
grandmother's admonition back then, he had the
opportunity to do so this last Friday, October 23, 2009,
when he appeared before the Commission investigating the
business activities of the historic March 2007 50th
independence celebrations.
That Friday was the "tomorrow" of his grandmother's
dread, but Kwadwo was ready.
His responses to the panel's questions were precise and
should help form the basis for an answer to a
"grandmother's cautionary tale" that ought to be told to
all generations.
Looking back over our 50 years of independence, the
remarkable thing to observe is how soon Ghanaians forget
the political nature of these public inquiries and how
often they are meant to target and pillorize political
opponents.
This type of inquiry originated in the days following
the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah. Back then, it provided
the opportunity for sycophants, opportunists, and some
of Nkrumah’s political opponents to grandstand.
And even now that those lessons of the ill nature and
biases of some of these inquiries have been delivered,
and how overblown the charges against Nkrumah were, we
are still here today tolerating and carrying on the
practice.
The public inquiries of the 60s have become the template
for successive administrations, especially those of the
military kind.
Thus, what had to be done behind closed doors got done
in public to score political points or justify the
illegal seizure of power. The lesson we missed was how
negative, futile, and dismal these inquiries became for
the Ghanaian image.
For the public good, the Ghana@50 commission inquiries
should have been held behind closed doors.
But it is being done now in the open; all for the sake
of upholding a party’s manifesto. And the remarkable
incivility shown on Friday to Mr. Mpiani by Mrs.
Marietta Appiah-Oppong, a member of the Commission,
underlined this fact.
Mrs. Appiah-Oppong had asked Mr. Mpiani about the
authorship of the accounts for the Ghana@50 Secretariat
to which the latter had answered that it was prepared by
the Secretariat.
Not satisfied, Mrs. Appiah-Oppong retorted “I know the
CEO of the Secretariat holds an MBA degree in Finance,
apart from that the other staff members were made up
of drivers and national service persons (italics
mine) so I want to know whether it was these people who
had prepared the account,” as reported by the Daily
Graphic.
You note the heavy sarcasm in Mrs. Appaih-Oppong's
address, which was directed at Mr. Mpiani, and wonder
what caused this incivility towards a former superior
public official and you couldn’t help but conclude that
the purpose was to impress a partisan crowd.
But you also would notice the unspoken irony delivered
by Mrs. Appiah-Oppong at her own expense.
She knew details of the qualifications of the CEO of the
Secretariat but had not bothered to learn enough about
the organization she was investigating - about who the
Chief Financial Officer was or the name(s) of the Chief
Accountant or the firm that handled accounting for the
Secretariat if any.
You could conclude again, by her singular uncivil
question, and her lack of preparation for work at the
commission that day.
And you wonder what Mrs. Appiah-Oppong did that
morning before coming to work for the commission!
Then there was the matter of Justice Douse, the Chairman
of the Commission's expression of incredulity about the
generosity of Dr. Wereko-Brobbey for using his fortune
of GHC 200,000.00 to kick start the Ghana@50
celebration.
According to the Daily Graphic of Ghana, Mr. Justice
Douse said “it baffled him as to how a person, on being
appointed to implement a government program who himself
had not been paid, had to use his own money or source
for it to do the job.”
Granted the size of endowment should be a legit ground
for wondering.
Either Mr. Justice Douse’s bafflement was a
commendation of a sort for Dr. Wereko-Brobbey’s public
spiritedness or an expression of doubt about this CEO’s
ability to have given the GHC 200,000.
Still, regardless of the nature of Mr. Justice Douse’s
bafflement, the Secretariat had asked for volunteers and
donors to get the event going.
The inquiry
should be technical and directed at the receipts.
Was such money deposited and where did it come
from?
There should be nothing wrong with a CEO, charged with
the success of the event, setting a good example by
putting his own money into the kitty; that is if he had
the money. The evidence should easily be verifiable.
While it is good for public officials to be held
accountable for decisions they make when in office, such
inquiries must always be first held behind closed doors.
CHRAJ would be investigating the M & J alleged bribery
scandal out of the public glare. This legal outfit could
also have handled the Ghana@50 Secretariat inquiries in
the same manner and brought to the courts those found
guilty; thus, eliminating the political drama of these
hearings.
But the drama continued in the manner that the politics
of our history has allowed.
So, Mr. Mpiani's grandmother’s story about there
“being always a tomorrow” should serve as a cautionary
tale for cohorts of the government of the day.
I
wonder what the same grandmother saw at the time Nkrumah
was overthrown.
Well, lessons left unlearned will come to haunt
us.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, October 26, 2009
Permission to publish:
Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with
credits, unedited.
If posted on a website, email a copy of the web
page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.
|
