Is the Deputy Transport Minister serious?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

March 24, 2016

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

Quite a bit of articles has been written and published over the critical question of road safety in Ghana; but the last thing that I expected to learn to my utter horror is the fact that the country’s Deputy Transport Minister, Mrs. Joyce Bawah-Mogtari, claims to have been driving back and forth to work every week day without a driver’s license because for two years she has been waiting on line, literally, to have her old driver’s license renewed and returned to her by the country’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) – (See “I Drive without a License – Dep. Min. of Transport” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/24/16).

I hope she is also not among the 80-percent of the deputy Mahama cabinet appointees known to be attending night classes in a bid to being gifted with cheap graduate degrees. As of this writing, even the substantive Labor Minister, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, was reported to be studying for a law degree. In other words, a remarkable percentage of these executive appointees do not appear to be fully committed to the portfolios for whose occupancy they are fully salaried and afforded all the perks that go with these plum jobs. In the case of Mr. Iddrisu, it is quite fascinating because several years ago he had his master’s degree in one of the social sciences summarily withdrawn, after it was discovered by the academic dons of the University of Ghana that the then-Atta-Mills Deputy Minister had thoroughly plagiarized his way through most of his thesis.

What I am clearly implying here is that most of these National Democratic Congress’ cabinet appointees may not be half-qualified for their jobs. We are not, for instance, told by Mrs. Bawah-Mogtari, the Deputy Transport Minister, what steps she and her immediate boss, the substantive Transport Minister, have taken to ensure that the administrative culture at the Department of Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority would be streamlined during the two years that the problem has persisted. For instance, what sort of issues do Mrs. Bawah-Mogtari and her boss regularly bring up for discussion at cabinet meetings at the Flagstaff House with President John Dramani Mahama? In all likelihood, it appears not much; or perhaps the pair at the Transport Ministry has stopped working hard for the desired results, because they have come to the conclusion that a temperamentally short-fused and widely perceived administratively lethargic President Mahama prefers to have things at a standstill, the way they appear to be presently?

Or is it that Mrs. Bawa-Mogtari and her immediate superior prefer to simply content themselves with their comfortable salaries, rather than unwisely rock the boat and find themselves shown the exit out of the Transport Ministry? Whatever their reasons for keeping mum, the picture does not look good, both for the performance record of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress and the safety of motor-vehicle operators and commuters around the country. What we have here is a government that has become effectively dysfunctional by all indicators. It is also a problem that could be effectively seized upon by the Akufo-Addo-led main opposition New Patriotic Party (PNDC) to drive home the imperative necessity for Ghanaian voters to send the Mahama Posse packing bag and baggage out of the Flagstaff House come November 7, 2016.

It is almost certain that the administrative culture and protocol at the DVLA during the Kufuor-led NPP government was much better than most Ghanaian motorists, private and commercial, are presently witnessing and experiencing. No citizen in any functional democracy ought to spend even a year, much less two years, on a queue waiting for his/her driver’s license to be renewed. It simply does not make sense; no, not even in a jaded Cocoa Republic like Ghana.

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