Corruption Hinders Ghana's Progress

.....Not the Term of Office of the President or the Government.

By Otchere Darko


Reference: “According to the last son of Ghana’s first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, such a system will give presidents and their governments enough time to roll out and implement their policies.” [By courtesy of Ghanaweb General News of Monday, 26 August 2013; Source: radioxyzonline.com; and captioned: “Sekou: Presidents must serve one term”]


The belief that if presidents of Ghana are given one single tenure of office of seven-year duration, they can "roll out and implement their policies" is a shallow statement. Why give them seven years and not eight or nine or ten years?


Ghanaians must understand that "government", as an institution, NEVER ends. We change one administration and its players, but government itself continues, as long as the “state” as an independent political entity exists. Thus, if one batch of elected or appointed people finishes its term of elected or stipulated office, another batch is elected or appointed into office to continue where the last batch left off. This is the essence of any modern system of government. We (Ghanaians collectively) must stop using the term "the last government” as if members that form such government were not put there by us (the same Ghanaians) who later see such members as though they are aliens forced upon Ghanaians by some external force. The development or progress of Ghana has stalled, not because past presidents and governments have not had enough time to implement their policies. Development and progress in Ghana have stalled because our politicians enter politics to seek their personal wellbeing; and, as such, they always pursue expenditure programmes that help them to fill their private pockets, but which militate against real national development. So, from the national point of view and analysis, does it matter whether our presidents and the governments they form stay in office for two four-year terms, or one seven-year term?

Instead of debating the term of office of our presidents, I suggest that we (Ghanaians) spend our time and energies to tackle the real issues that impede the progress of Ghana as a nation and the general wellbeing of its people. *I suggest the following two ideas, as a panacea for Ghana’s development and progress, as opposed to increasing the tenure of office of our presidents.


Firstly, new administrations in Ghana must stop abandoning uncompleted projects of previous administration. Abandoning projects started by previous administrations leads to the wasting of the nation’s capital resources that were used to start the projects and continue them to the points where those who started them left off. Such wasting of capital leads, naturally, to stalling of the country’s progress. To illustrate this kind of waste, I like to use one abandoned project in Koforidua. The last Kufuor administration wanted to develop a new “timber market” in the Eastern Regional capital. The Government accordingly acquired and prepared a piece of land at a place in Koforidua that is very close to where St James Hotel is located. *I myself saw the vast stretch of land that had been ‘bull-dozed’ for the new “timber market”. When Kufuor’s administration ended and was replaced by Mills’ administration and, later, by the current Mahama administration, the new “timber market” project was, or has been abandoned. As a result, the land that had previously been prepared for the commencement of the project has been allowed to ‘lie fallow’ and grow into what one may describe as a ‘forest reserve’. If time could permit me, I could mention several of such government [of Ghana] projects that have been abandoned since the end of the First Republic to now. *If [and when] political parties voted into office see "the government [of Ghana]" as a continuous institution, and new administrations continue to complete economically viable projects started by those before them, the call for the term of presidents of Ghana to be changed from two four-year terms to a one term of seven years, or to any longer period, will be irrelevant.


Secondly, we must tackle the problem of corruption in public places in Ghana head-on, and without partisan considerations. In my opinion, the biggest impediment to Ghana’s development is not the shortness of the term of elected office. It is rather corruption. If all Ghanaian presidents and members of their administrations, irrespective of their parties’ political persuasions, would tackle the issue of corruption more seriously and stop backing the “criminals” within their parties who siphon the country’s monies and other resources into their private pockets, there could be no reason why any president or any administration should worry about the inadequacy of the first four-year term of office, without the certainty of a second four-year term. The good works of good leaders and their parties campaign for them. Such good leaders and their parties can always be certain of winning their second terms, and even winning several full terms thereafter, without the need to win elections by foul means.


Let politicians and political parties in Ghana, especially NDC and NPP, secure the length they want to rule this nation by demonstrating honesty. And let them stop “chop-breeding” Ghana into death. If they don’t, one day, it will not be judges that will decide their fate. It will be hungry men in the streets of Ghana who will.