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John Mahama should kip and halt tossing and turning!

John Dramani Mahama1212 President-Elect John Dramani Mahama

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 Source: Prof. Dinkum

It is a sacrosanct step to initiate a mechanism to zap the periodicity of plunder within various governmental spheres. It’s also worth noting that John Mahama is widely known as the leading government official to have been embroiled in a hybrid of loot through corrupt means and, in effect, has been earmarked as the linchpin of corruption. As the aphorism goes, 'he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.'

For John Mahama to erect a Committee/Commission to probe into any feasible loot bred by any government official is literally farcical and preposterous, since the modus operandi used by him lacks constitutional salubrity.

Constitutionally, for a Committee/Commission to be birthed to investigate a matter of public concern/importance, which in his (John Mahama) case is a paradigm of that, three routes are inculcated and enlightened by the constitution, of which at least one must be accomplished before, according to Article 278 (1) of the 1992 Constitution. And thus:

(a) the President is satisfied that a commission of inquiry should be appointed, or

(b) the Council of State advises that it is in the public interest to do so; or

(c) Parliament, by a resolution, requests that a commission of inquiry be appointed to inquire into any matter specified in the resolution as being a matter of public importance.

In this case, John Mahama hasn’t ascended to the presidency throne yet, so he defiles paragraph (a) being one of the desiderata. Again, since he hasn’t been sworn in as the subsequent president, he doesn’t have a subscribed and legally amalgamated Council of State, therefore that requirement is nullified also.

Lastly, paragraph (c) declares that Parliament can do so through resolution requests, but here is the case that John Mahama, as of now, has no correlation with Ghana’s Parliament in terms of defining its structures. However, John Mahama's pioneering this crusade is precisely and palpably tantamount to an agenda of futility at this moment.

Therefore, before John Mahama conceptualized the institution of the committee classed "Operation Recover All Loots," he must commence it from his politically coupled partisans and also be the first person to return all the loot which took place under his tutelage as the president. John Mahama signed off 58% of the country’s total bauxite reserves to Exton Cubic, a company owned by his brother after he was walloped in the 2016 election.

But this same looter is here today, masquerading to be impervious to such cancer! John Mahama tries to tug at us with heartstrings through playing to the gallery. The wealth of pillage John Mahama has individually engineered is sensationally staggering. He has peculated the country’s resources unabatedly under his reign, which is why the late H. E. John Atta Mills engendered a committee to investigate him on the ticket of imminent loot.

John Mahama has masterminded the most felonious looting exercise in the chronicles of Africa, which has, in turn, incapacitated the economic health of the country, thus selling the Tema Port to the French Billionaire Vincent Bolloré for a whacking 35 years.

In that process, the Meridian Port Services (MPS) overstated its planned investment, which won them tax holidays worth $832 million from Ghana’s Parliament, and that consensus clandestinely punctured Ghana’s equity in MPS to 15% after first concurring to 30%. We expect John Mahama to restore the detriments he entangled this country into in this Machiavellian business transaction, and after that, he hands himself over to the police service for incarceration.

It’s a fact that John Mahama and his NDC appendages have engaged in draconian looting exploitations more than any political party/government in Ghana. We all witnessed how the NDC Party leaders connived with Alfred Woyome in appropriating Gh¢51.2 million from the state. So, if there is someone to return the loot, then after John Mahama has done so, Alfred Woyome must be the subsequent person in line.

Even quite recently, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) gazetted that some appointees of John Mahama under his gnarled presidency had used state money worth US$8,409,400 in subsidizing luxurious mansions, apartments, etc., in Dubai. These are the people John Mahama should pursue to recuperate the prodigal usage of the state’s resources and as well, clap them in irons rather than circumnavigating in trivialities.

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Columnist: Prof. Dinkum