THE SEVEN 'BULLETS' LAUNCHED INTO THE SOUL OF GHANA... WA WEST MO WRITES

The Ghanaian child is trained  in a corrupt environment and this largely accounts for the near-silence prevailing in the country under the present circumstances being led by the President, who Lawyer Martin AK Amidu, former Special Prosecutor, described as the *mother* *serpent* *of* *corruption* . This metaphorical description of the President by someone  who has indepth knowledge of the corruption landscape is quite worrying. It's indeed scary looking at what the biblical serpent has done to mankind. 

Can we stop the hypocrisy and agree that the rot is real and stinky? We must allow the law to work against this canker or we might as well just institutionalise the evil so  that it can be taxed to generate some revenue. The latter solution sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But if you consider the daunting challenge we have with laws working in this country, you will realise that it is probably not too far-fetched as a possible solution. 

When those in power literally become the law; when they conclude that one plus one is equal to 5 and would use their power to maul any voice that dares to challenge such strange arithmetics, what else can we do?

The 'bullets' 

1. To feed children in primary school, the cook steals the raw food before cooking. The person awarded the contract to feed the students reduces the quality and quantity of the food so that he/she can make more money. This is because he/she either bought the contract or had it as a result of his/her position in the ruling party but not on merit. The result is that the children are fed with more corruption and very little food.

2. The Ministry of Finance is overflowing with experienced technocrats and policy experts. The president enhances the team by selecting the best persons in line with his vision for the country and appoint them as the  Minister of Finance, Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and two Deputy Ministers of Finance. Strangely, the Whole Ministry is portrayed as not having the expertise to go into the capital market to increase our debt burden through selling of bonds. We need  a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to lead us into the market. The amount of money paid the SPV can take care of Ghana's Bullion Van or Basic School furniture needs. To be intelligent without integrity is indeed poison to society. 

3. GETFund is a statutory fund dependent on government tax revenue. Simply, a percentage of taxes is meant for GETFund by law. Today GETFund also has an SPV to lead them to borrow against expected inflow of revenue from government. As I write, GETFund has been weakened into a body responsible for paying heavy monies to an SPV and servicing loans, with little left for infrastructure that could expand access to education. In spite of all these embarrassing developments, the authorities have the guts to wage a legal war against the conveners of #FixtheCountry', a legitimate movement of well-meaning citizens whose only crime is that they are calling on the government to fulfill its social contract with the people. 

4. The nation loses billions of Ghana Cedis in the petroleum downstream but no one is interested or has the capacity to plug the loopholes as the beneficiaries of the leakages are numerous and powerful.  The lazy approach of piling up taxes on the price of fuel in order to balance the equation only ends up hurting the economy even more. Where is our dream of moving from taxation to production? 

5. Many Ghanaian companies are beginning to shift towards the use of expatriate managers because integrity as a core corporate value does not appear to exist any more among Ghanaian corporate professionals. The pressure of unemployment has created a dangerous trend where the unqualified but politically connected are employed to occupy the few available public sector slots. As unemployed remain a national security threat, many of the employed are like termites and parasites feeding on or eating away the nation's fabric because they don't have the skill-set to contribute positively.

6. To dull senses in Ghana with a wrong decision and get critical public to go quiet, all you need to do is to search the records from 1993 to date, find something similar for justification, no matter how faint. This nonsense is called political equalisation. We are gradually validating and ratifying the mistakes and bad practices of the past instead of learning from them.  

7. With all the lawyers and Alternative Dispute Resolution experts in Ghana,  it had to take a foreign legal firm to represent Ghana in the GPGC contract cancellation that finally resulted in a whopping $170 million judgement debt with thousands of pounds paid to  the legal firm that represented Ghana. The whole enterprise looks like a smart way of stealing. 

The heartbreaking reality is that, all these seven 'bullets' have been fired into the soul of Ghana. We indeed need help!

It is interesting to note that government appointees took oaths using the Bible, Qur'an or The Cross, yet the system is an insult to all these holy objects.

The Whole-of-Givernment, not just the Police, needs  'bullet proof jacket'.

Where are we going as a country?