RE: Sales Girls Jailed 17 Years

I am very impressed about this judgment and the judges need to be commended. The government also needs to be commended for creating more commercial courts in the country in order to curtail this social menace.

Stealing from corporations has entrenched in our society and it has become the major developmental challenges in Ghana.

More than 50% of Ghanaians are potential of stealing their firms or bosses. This can either be time (late to work), not giving out their best to task assigned or stealing products and services of the firm.

How can a firm grow in order to employ more people if the goods and services of the firm are being stolen by the existing workers? Ghanaians are their own enemies in our quest for development.

The major developmental challenge Ghana is facing is an access of finance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Most entrepreneurs in Ghana strive very hard in order to raise needed capital for their ventures. Selfish and greedy Ghanaians want to use a couple of months to raid all the hard earned capital of the shareholders within a twinkle of an eye.

It’s very astonishing that when these people are punished according to the law in order to serve as deterrent to other people who are potential of this social menace, you will hear another batch of greedy and selfish Ghanaians playing foul of the judgment. If they know what it takes to raise capital or build an enterprise, they will never say so. We seriously need attitudinal change. It is also in our own best interest for these enterprises to exist in order to create wealth for foreseeable future.

Do Ghanaians know that the private sector is the engine of growth for the world economy especially developing countries such as Ghana? Companies play a pivotal role in a success of every economy. They create wealth and improve the well-being of the people by paying corporation tax and the employees also pay tax. These taxes are used to provide social amenities such as health, education, roads and create stable society.

It is very irony that Ghanaians always call on the government to create more jobs, meanwhile their brothers and sisters who are in viable employment are stealing their employers. This has led to poverty and unemployment becoming a recycling in Ghana.

The white collar crime, corporate corruption and pilfering has led to the enactments of vigorous financial laws and good corporate governance codes across the globe.

The governments in Africa have also recognized that the prosperity of its people is closely linked with its ability to create and maintain viable and competitive well governed enterprises. It is against this background that the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) were created to solve the problems currently facing Africa and to empower the private sector to make a significant contribution to the economy.

The private sector can only make a significant contribution to the economy if they are protected against these social menaces. The government needs to tighten up financial laws in order for the private sector to grow and also attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country.

It’s my fervent hope that other judges will use this case as a precedent and pass stiffer and custodial sentences in order to eliminate this social menace.

Kwaku Omari Email: kwakuomari@hotmail.com