Inertia must be our collective middle name, for in Ghana any attempt to cause significant change in any sphere is met with a "yes, but..." Let's wait and see or the deadly 'God is in control' (GIC) or the more cosmopolitan 'Jesus is in control (JIC).' There is an inherent passivity in our approach to problems which obstructs progress and change. This is complicated by unquestioned religiosity or an exclusive reliance on biblical passages which support our approach. This passivity is not without active resistance, which may account for our being the first to have the Union Jack lowered against our clear skies in sub-Saharan Africa. Having driven out the stewards of the British Empire we now continue to obstruct our own progress from within.
Politicians from both grand traditions of party politics in Ghana have confronted the scourge of bribery in their writings, public statements and broadcasts. In his sociological writings Busia laments about how traditional chiefs routinely received gifts and bribes from both plaintiffs and defendants in their courts. It seems that a perverse attempt at equity was alive. One of his more prescient observations of the colonial experience was that "physical enslavement is tragic enough; but the mental and spiritual bondage that makes people despise their own culture is much worse, for it makes them lose self-respect and, with it, faith in themselves."
When his close associate Ras Makonnen complained to him about rampant corruption among party members, Nkrumah in resignation said "I can't build enough jails to hold them." Additionally, Nkrumah's Dawn Broadcast in which he decried self-seeking and corruption was a "day late and a dollar short". Culturally accepted corruption is a problem which transcends party politics. It is a national scourge and no amount of national prayer will divine a solution to this multi-faceted problem which has scarred our national identity and impeded our progress as a nation for generations.
In 1967, meeting a fellow student for the first time in Lusaka, I offered my name and introduced myself as being from Ghana. The New Zealander responded "You are from the Land of the Dash". Sadly "Dash me something" has been our national mantra for eons. Foreign investors routinely complain about Ghanaian officials wanting their ?cut? before the transactions have yielded fruit. We always want the dash up front, before service is delivered! All our leaders from the beginning have failed to address the problem with any credibility.
There is no service provided in Ghana which does not involve a number of redundant steps. "First go here, then when you finish, take this form and go over there. Then ' etc.' Our systems are designed to serve the bureaucracy not the person paying for the service. Many of these systems of service provision were designed by an oppressor administration to frustrate the colonial subject and to inculcate a fear of dealing with governmental authority. We are attempting to administer a modern nation with a template written and christened as General Orders 1933 (G.O. 33). No measures of quality are present in any public service department. There is no promise to deliver a product or respond to a request within a specified time frame and no rewards are present for efficiency in the system. When you enter a post office to buy stamps, you are not informed of the average wait time for service, nor do you get a guaranteed time of arrival for your mail at its intended destination.
Even though you are paying for a service, the only invitation to a speedy response is for one to 'grease the wheel'. Better conditions for public employees represent only one dimension of the problem. If the ethical culture of the public service is not systematically and transparently addressed in conjunction with improved salaries and conditions, the monetary rewards will not result in better service for the diminished citizen.
It is not enough for our leaders to fret or weep about corruption or say that if someone asks for a bribe, 'Go to the police'. Neither does it make sense for a leader to wax less than eloquently about 'integrity' after presiding for over 2 decades of corruption and abuse of individual rights. Bribery and corruption are so embedded in our national psyche that all our leaders have simply paid lip service to the problem, approached the mountain of corruption with resignation or simply denied or minimized its existence in the extreme. Fundamentally, this problem is an insurmountable obstacle to ordinary citizens seeking municipal services, justice, health care and education. Bribery also deprives the nation of revenues and obviously hampers development. I have no intention of singling out the police because they are simply a reflection and a product of the larger society. Public correction of this problem must be aggressive, comprehensive and persistent. It should be addressed in first cycle schools and be addressed with the ferocity with which we approach public health problems like HIV/AIDS or tobacco and drug abuse. This is the sort of initiative that should be championed by a non-partisan advisory group like the Council of State. I do not recall a single large billboard anywhere in Ghana addressing this problem. Our improperly so-called efforts at addressing institutionalized corruption to date amount to pure bull and continued self-deception.
Must all our ministries really be located in Accra? I think not. Many ministries and government departments can function more appropriately from other regional capitals with good reason. There is no reason why the Ministry of Agriculture should not be located in Tamale or Mines in Tarkwa, Education in Cape Coast etc. (I can hear the "Yes, but" already).
Greater decentralization will encourage a more objective engagement between citizens and government departments. Infrastructural resources, development and the growth of the service industry will also be more equitably distributed across this blessed land. Our capital city will certainly be less congested. We are addressing our problems within the existing paradigm which has failed us since the early 20th century, when emails, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, air travel were either non-existent or in status nascendi. We need a much broader vision of our nation and indeed the requirements of our citizens whose need for efficient service is a non-negotiable right. The government must go to the people not the converse. The twin problems of bribery and bureaucracy can only be tamed and vanquished by inspirational leadership rooted in real understanding of the travails of the ordinary citizen and the abuses meted out by public servants to those who pay their salaries. Not until our leaders understand, live and breathe the idea that governance is about service and not about power, we are doomed. Democracy is about the unique power to serve, bestowed on the leadership by the voting public. The great irony of our capacity for service is that Ghana has produced the many great public servants both at home and on the international stage. The likes of Michael Dei Anang, Robert Gardiner and more recently, Busumuru Kofi Annan who has arguably served the world as its chief public servant with distinction for the last decade, are but a drop in this ocean of national excellence. Therein lies the tragedy.
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