There is also the double payment to Waterville. Kufuor paid Waterville $21 million for refurbishments to one of our stadia for CAN2010 and closed the case. The Mills-Mahama administration, however, paid another $21 million to Waterville over the same matter, we are told.
They also paid Construction Pioneers (CP) ?94 million Ghana owes it in judgement debt and accumulated interest on the principal although CP, we hear, owes Ghana more (?140 million) in unpaid taxes. When Mrs. Iddrissu was asked about it at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC,) she shockingly said Ghana waived the taxes for CP; for a company that also owes us?
Another case is the 86 Hyundai Gallopers brought by Africa Automobile Limited (AAL,) who have no document to prove it had contract with Ghana. Plus AAL kept the vehicles in their warehouse from 1999 till 2009, when it moved them to the premises of the Ghana Local Government Training Institute at Madina, Accra. That movement was obviously to enable them come forth to claim they supplied vehicles to Ghana in 1999, to establish a pretext to claim money in the guise of judgement debt; $1.5 billion, according to the Mills-Mahama administration.
Over the years, a sorry approach to dealing with corruption accusations has become a refrain of national administrations. When one of theirs is accused they publish acts of corruption committed by the accusing political party when it was in national administration, or expose someone amongst them who allegedly has committed a wrong act. And the Ghanaian is always right in asking whether the second set of exposure cancels out the crime in the first. Today Mahama administration leads Ghana and the onus lie on him to bring to trial anyone they accuse of misdoing, whether the culprit is in or without their party.
Another funny approach is the public relations stunt of creating the impression that the accused is working to the benefit of society. And so here is Ibrahim Mahama?s company, Engineers & Planners, airing a documentary saying he is serving Ghana. But professing patriotism does not automatically render an accused blameless, because service to the state neither subsumes nor kills a crime one commits. Certainly, Ibrahim Mahama?s serves Ghana ? as 24 million others do, ? but that does not cancel the inappropriateness of the president using state money to pay off his brother?s debt to Merchant Bank?
Another pending matter is the ?ex-refinery differential? scandal, an issue of double significance ? stealing by state executive and its disrespect of the court. In 2009 the Mills-Mahama administration made the highest increases petroleum fuel prices and allowed the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to smuggle into the prices illegal charges called ?ex-refinery differential.? There is no ?ex-refinery differential? component in the formula for setting the prices of the fuels, but the administration added it, secretly, to the prices charged at the filling stations.
Since 2009 therefore, the administration/NPA have been stealing from Ghanaians 95 pesewas on every gallon of diesel oil sold, 29 pesewas on each gallon of super petrol, 42 pesewas on each gallon of kerosene, 8 pesewas on a gallon of gas, and 69 pesewas on a gallon of MGL Local.
On Monday, November 28, 2011, the High Court ruled that the ?ex-refinery differential? is ?illegal,? and directed that the NPA do the following: remove it from all the affected fuels; announce the new lower price of each fuel; publish the total amount accrued from charging the illegal margins over the two-year period, and; pay the total amount into the Consolidated Fund. As Ti-Kelenkelen writes the Mahama administration is yet to comply with all four directives.
What are Azeem and the GII saying about that, because they cannot stop talking until the administration/NPA recant from the stealing and the unconstitutional disrespect of a court order.
What We Need
All the instances listed above are borne out by official documents. Key particulars of each represent incidences of criminal behaviour and Ghana has laws for dealing with each one. Yet President Mills was silent over most, and now President Mahama too is silent over them.
With the deepest humility, Ti-Kelenkelen finds the proposed sole commissioner on judgement debts diversionary, preposterous and a futile attempt to shield the Mills and now Mahama administration who have taken and paid out to persons and business entities monies they do not deserve.
Here is why: You set up a commission when there have been too many cases of payment of genuine judgement debts ? contracts were wrongfully terminated, the aggrieved parties go to court and the court says, yes, there have been breach(s) and the aggrieved party deserves payment. A court looks at the evidence and gives judgement asking Ghana to pay the aggrieved party. That is genuine judgement debt, nevertheless it is a drain on the Consolidated Fund and Ghana cannot continue to afford it. Indeed, the state officials who breached the contract and inflicted the judgement debt on Ghana could be charged before court.
On the other hand, when fraudulent and undeserving payments are made and clothed in the garb of judgement debts crimes have been committed. In those instances, you do not set up a commission to look into the cases; you line up the private culprits and abetting public officials, prosecute and jail them as deterrent, and retrieve Ghana?s monies into the Consolidated Fund.
What is Azeem Saying?
How would Vitus Azeem term ?fraudulent and undeserving payments? made and clothed in the garb of judgement debts?? Does that basket-load not fall in the set called corruption? Is fighting corruption not the sine qua non of the existence of GII, which he leads?
Granted, non-punishment of corruption in our body politic, especially in high places, is making it trickle down in a dangerous tide. Regular readers will recall Ti-Kelenkelen ever expressed worry over the matter. In that article, I pointed out, among other things, that we are gradually building up a mass consciousness that says it is okay to rip off the state, and the fact that the elite is leading that acceptance makes it the more lethal.
But the critical question is: Should we just accept that situation and say well people no longer see corruption as an issue, so??
The call the creature by name, the situation is as bad as it is today, because we have taken the position Azeem espouses in his statement ? acknowledging rather than fighting corruption. Hence the bad situation represents an indictment on all of us, but particularly GII and Azeem. It shows they are just sitting in the cosiness of their offices, enjoying fat salaries and juicy allowances off annual funds sent them by Transparency International, while they do nothing to spread awareness of and leading Ghana to fight corruption.
Here is my point: If Azeem?s GII (and all the NGO?s dedicated to exposing and fighting corruption) were doing their job properly, less and less politicians will indulge in and condone corruption and fraud; state anti-corruption agencies, such as the A-G?s office and EOCO would have no choice but to protect Ghana, and; generally, Ghanaians would shudder even when defrauding or an act of corruption against Ghana crosses their minds. The rot at the heart of our festering problem of corruption is simple: It is the inefficiency of personalities and groups, such as Azeem and GII, and their readiness to explain our passive attitude towards corruption rather than persevere in leading us to fight it.
If the watchdog, the one who must be among the vanguard to fight corruption is simply reporting that we no longer hate it, what are we to think? What are we to make of it when the vanguard party simply reports that people no longer care when it should be demanding that national administrations, rather than committing and/or aiding & abetting and even shielding crony-culprits, must take bold, effective steps against the canker?
Conclusion
Few home truths will do us a world of good. For one thing, (as I ever stated,) Ghana?s money is a collective asset and ? as Bill Cosby would say ? ?a terrible thing to waste. National administrations are mere caretakers and we cannot and should not sit by and allow them to steal and waste wanna monnie. Two, we should all be worried that the Mills and Mahama administrations have, in 3? years, paid our $900 million in so-called judgement debts before they want to set up a committee to look into it. Where were they looking when they were paying the monies? Again, go through any Auditor-General?s report and you will be flabbergasted and shocked at the billions of cedis spent and yet are unaccounted for in state institutions.
In the light of such evidence, is Azeem saying we no longer need to press forward with the fight against corruption?
Go round the country and you will be shocked at the squalor more than 70% of Ghanaians live in twelve years into this 21st Century. One national administration after another keep telling us they have reduced poverty by this or that impressive percentage, but those are simply lies. We must reduce the awesome waste and stealing of state funds, and use the money to improve the lot of our brothers and sisters.
We have no choice! We must persevere in the fight against corruption! To start countenancing the canker, or to resign or give up would be sounding the death knell of our great state of glorious destiny.
Ti-Kelenkelen Yirenkyi Lamptey
