Make public criteria for public appointments - GII

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) is calling on President John Mahama to make public the criteria for the selection of persons he appoints on various boards and other public offices.

In a statement the group noted that this will ensure that the right people with the requisite competencies were appointed.

According to GII, it is unfortunate that some appointees consider their appointments as a means of livelihood and “create unnecessary meetings and get themselves appointed unto several sub-committees in order to earn more allowances.”

Below is the full statement from GII

Ghana has gone through yet another election and a new government has been put in place. The President is busy appointing members of his government, including ministers, deputy ministers, Members of the Council of State, etc. as well as Chief Directors and Board members of state-owned enterprises. In such appointments, competence, integrity, public accountability and patriotism should be the guiding principles. However, in the past, various governments have tended to use such appointments as reward to political colleagues, friends, family members and campaign sponsors and party financiers, making political and personal considerations take priority over the national good.

GII wishes to draw the President’s attention to the inappropriateness of using public appointments as reward system for the party faithful based on loyalty to party course. GII considers such a system inappropriate and unjustified on many grounds:

Such an award system tends to reward mediocrity and destroys the esprit de corps of the public service as public servants tend to be apathetic;

Productivity within the public service very often suffers irreparable damage;

Such political appointees tend to grow horns and destroy the well-established order of the workings of the public service;

Chief executive officers appointed by such political means do not see themselves as accountable to the board under which they are supposed to work;

Factions and power blocks develop among board members depending on where the loyalty of a board member lies within the party structure leading to unhealthy and unworkable relationships which affects the smooth functioning of the board;

The technocrats on the board tend to view with suspicion the politicians on the board and vice versa;

Some of the board members bring no added value to the entity they are put in charge apart from collecting huge sitting allowances;

Such appointees see their appointments as a means of livelihood and create unnecessary meetings and get themselves appointed unto several sub-committees in order to earn more allowances.

Parliamentarians, who are expected to play an oversight role over the Executive, are also appointed to Boards of corporations, compromising their independence and oversight role. On principle, it is wrong to appoint parliamentarians onto boards of such entities, since they are supposed to provide overall oversight responsibility to those state entities.

The only justification is to enable such parliamentarians earn extra income outside their parliamentarian duties. This practice must stop if we are committed to having effective institutions and having a Parliament that plays effective oversight over the Executive and affairs of the state. Ghanaians must condemn these appointments.

Very often, board members are allowed to fix salaries and other benefits for the CEOs and other management staff while, in turn, the CEOs fix allowances for the Board chairs and other members.

Some of these board members are paid outrageous sitting allowances alongside several benefits in kind such as official vehicles, free fuel, sponsored foreign travels and birthday parties.

They tend to award themselves and enjoy such huge compensation packages as if the entities they are put in charge to manage are their personal properties when indeed they have not invested a cedi of their own. Governments of the day seem not to be bothered about how much these benefits cost the SOEs and sub-vented institutions in particular and the state in general.

The nation loses resources which go into the private pockets which could be paid into the Consolidated Fund for the common good of the society. The GIPC saga is still fresh in our minds and GII still hopes to hear that the money has been refunded to that organization by the beneficiary.

We note with concern that in some cases, some influential and highly placed persons belong to several boards even when they are too busy to attend and contribute to board meetings and activities.

There can be no meaningful justification for such appointments other than political patronage.

Moreover, due to the juicy nature of some of these positions, none of these appointees is ever known to have turned down such appointment because they can honestly not get the time to do a good job.

Rewarding persons for political support with such juicy appointments and permitting them to determine huge allowances and other benefits for themselves and failing to take action when they compromise the institutions they preside over is definitely corruption. GII holds the view that as long as these SOEs were set up with funds from the public purse, the state has a duty and right to ensure that board members, in collaboration with their CEOs, protect the viability of these institutions of state.

GII again notes with concern that some Commissioners of certain independent institutions who are not full time staff members are treated like full time staff members and given benefits such as vehicles and fuel, etc, that amount to several times more than the salaries of several full-time staff put together. Some of these Commissioners may even work full-time elsewhere in government, thus, receiving double remuneration from the same Ghana government, while others use their benefits to pursue their private businesses. These acts must be checked as they increase the inequalities in the public sector and are a drain of the public purse.

In pursuance of its anti-corruption mandate, GII calls on His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama to:

Ensure that those he appoints to manage state-owned enterprise have the requisite competencies, knowledge and skills to manage such entities, and if possible, make the criteria for such appointments known.

Account appropriately for their stewardship.

Reorganise the State Enterprises Commission (SEC) to enable it perform its statutory obligations effectively and efficiently especially in its supervision of and establishing guidelines for the management of state owned enterprises.

To enable the SEC to streamline the criteria for the appointment and the fixing of the remunerations of board members and other steering committee members and to have control over their remuneration and allowances;

To limit the number of boards one can serve at any one time to an agreed number;

To put in place effective and efficient reporting and accountability system to ensure that board members and other such persons in charge of management perfume their function with due diligence free from any conflict of interest and are as much as possible guided by the provisions of the Companies Act, 1963 Act 179.

Ghana needs an ethical values system as an important ingredient in the delivery of quality services, the key to building customer loyalty, employee satisfaction and long term viability.

Basic values such as honesty, transparency, responsibility, fairness and integrity must be the watchwords.

We must demand that corporations behave ethically and in service of the common good and bring values back to the boardroom. The government, as the owner of SOEs and state agencies must provide the leadership. Part-time board members and/or Commissioners, etc. must not be allowed to exploit their public positions to build their private businesses and/or fund their ostentatious living.

Issued by

Ghana Integrity Initiative

Accra, March 1, 2013