Boundlessly unconscionable: Why treat political thieves with kid’s gloves?

By K. Badu

It is a known fact that in Ghana, the justice net often catches the emaciated fishes, while the fat ones easily slip through. It is extremely baffling. Isn’t it?

Regrettably, though, the justice system tends to descend heavily on goat, cassava and plantain thieves, and more often than not, let go hard criminals who hide behind narrow political colorations.

Truly, reported cases of political criminals misdeeds often leave concerned Ghanaians with a glint of bewilderment.

The unlawful possession of national assets by the officials of the erstwhile NDC government is the quintessence of political criminalities that confront the nation.

Apparently, when it comes to the prosecutions of the political criminals, we are often made to believe: “the wheels of justice turn slowly, but it will grind exceedingly fine.”

Yet we can gloomily pinpoint a lot of unresolved alleged criminal cases involving political personalities.

We hear racketeers managed to allocate judgement debt figure in the national budget (around GH600 million), with the sole objective to create, loot and share.

Do you remember Woyome’s GH51.2 million scandalous judgement debt payment?

It is on record that prior to the scandalous Wayome’s judgement debt payment, the late Mills warned the ‘create, loot and share’ cabals not to effect payment, yet the conspiratorial plotters defied the good old Mills orders and doled out the staggering amount to Wayome, who had no contract with the government of Ghana.

But thanks to the Citizen Vigilante, Martin Amidu, we had an opportunity to retrieve all the undeserving money from Woyome per the Supreme Court’s ruling. Yet the former Attorney General wilfully failed to do so.

What about the undeserving $30 million judgement debt payment to the Waterville, the dubious $25 million to ISOFOTON, and a lot more reported to be totalling a staggering GH800 million?

It is beyond puzzlement that individuals could form an alliance, create, loot and share gargantuan sums of money they were not entitled to, and would eventually slip through the justice net.

I will venture to state that there is no cynosure of deterrence for political criminals.

For, if that was not the case, how come political criminals always go through the justice net?

Granted, some may appear as mere allegations devoid of admissible evidence.

But what about the individuals who have been cited in the scandals such as SUBA, SADA, GYEEDA, Brazil World Cup, Bus Branding and many others?

Corruption is a serious economic, social, political and moral impediment to the nation building, and as such corrupt officials must be held accountable at all times.

It is obvious that corruption slackens a nation’s development. And what is more, corruption has become a worldwide menace.

Corruption is found in all countries—big and small, rich and poor—but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive.

Going forward, we must not and cannot use the justice net to catch only plantain, goat and cassava thieves, but we must rather spread the net wide to cover the hard criminals disguised in political attire.