Responding to Anas, Institutionally

Once again, ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas has shone a light on

another sordid corner of the state's creaky institutional superstructure.

And once again we respond with the same reckless hysteria with which we greeted

his 2010 exposé of cocoa smuggling along the country's western border: Fire

them! Prosecute them! Jail them and throw away the keys!

Most of these calls were of course heeded by the government, which even

increased troop presence along the borders ostensibly to curb cocoa smuggling.

But the practice continues. The smugglers simply weigh the potential benefits

against the cost and then take the necessary risks – like any savvy business

person would do. It may be illegal but it’s certainly not irrational.

The public's response to the latest exposé of corruption at the Tema Port has

been no different, with one commentator even suggesting that the corrupt

officials be executed.

But we've been there before, haven't we.

Over the years, we have fired and jailed and even executed, including three

former heads of state in 1979, and yet public sector corruption remains --

doggedly.

Not even the 'glorious 31st December revolution' of 1981 - which followed the

bloody 'house cleaning' of 1979 - could minimize it, much less eliminate it.

Proof of that came in 1999, when the queen of England visited Ghanaand President

Rawlings asked for her help in fighting corruption in his government – exactly

20 years after he presided over the execution of his three predecessors amidst

mass dismissal and incarceration of lower-level public officials who were

considered corrupt.

In the 12 years since then, Ghanaians have watched somewhat helplessly as

officials in high places dip their hands in the public kitty at will and

bureaucratic corruption, such as exposed by Anas, gradually eats away at public

confidence in the state. The jailing of some public officials for “causing

financial loss to the state” in 2001 was only highlight of a cosmetic attempt at

fighting corruption which, not surprisingly, barely deterred others from

stealing from the state later. Corruption, we were later reminded, was as old

as Adam.

While Anas deserves commendation for his enterprising work, the inconvenient

truth is that there is nothing substantially new in his latest revelations. As

far back as September 6, 2007, Ghanaweb ran a GNA story titled, '40,000 vehicles

escape payment of customs duty'.

In that story, an investigator hired by the Ministry of Finance expressed

concern about the “huge loss of revenue to the state [through] tax evasion, and

said the leakage was coming from some officials of the CEPS and the Driver and

Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA)”

The similarity of that story to Anas’s warrants extensive quotation here:

“The investigator said some officials of the CEPS and the VELD used the paid

duties of vehicles of already registered vehicles to register new ones.

In that instance, the officials collect data from the Ghana Community Networks

computer monitoring system for vehicles whose customs duties had already been

paid to satisfy the duty payment requirement for registering new vehicles.

In some cases, payment for a bicycle, motorbikes and fishing nets had been used

for vehicles that would have attracted higher duties when in reality nothing was

paid for them.”

The story speaks of a four-member committee established by the then finance

minister to “investigate allegations of operational malpractices at CEPS to

establish administrative actions against culpable personnel and identify

management weaknesses in dealing expeditiously with disciplinary matters.”

The committee, we were told, was “reviewing the systems, procedures, processes,

rules and regulations of CEPS in relation to its auction procedures to recommend

specific actions or alternatives of disposing of seized goods. The committee

would also examine the role of clearing agents, auctioneers and other related

matters.”

At about the same time, a study commissioned by the ministry found that

government was losing about GH¢3 billion (the cedi was roughly equivalent to the

US dollar then) in tax exemptions to a range of beneficiaries, including

diplomatic missions, NGOs and so-called foreign investors, at least one of which

used its exemption to import chicken eggs.

It is clear from the foregoing that corruption is an institutional not a

personality problem, transcending revolutions and governments. In the case of

the ports, cumbersome procedures, along with an irrational and prohibitive

tariff regime, only succeed in making criminals of otherwise decent and honest

citizens.

When a person buys a car abroad for US$2,000.00 and has to pay more than

US$3,000.00 in duties and other taxes through an inscrutable bureaucratic maze,

the temptation to beat the system becomes rational, even human, if not

defensible.

“Only fools like me pay duties,” said a New York-based Ghanaian lawyer familiar

with the madness at our ports. “The commercial importers don’t pay anything.

They would not make any profit if they did”.

Some defend higher tariffs in the name of revenue for development. But common

sense tells us that beyond a certain threshold, higher tax rates actually yield

less, not more, revenue through evasion or a decline in the underlying economic

activity.

Nor is it true that we need higher tariffs to protect and grow local industry.

What local industry actually needs are reliable electricity, affordable credit,

good infrastructure, a skilled and productive labor force, a competent

government, and of course efficient port services. Higher tariffs impede

development by raising the cost of doing business, suppressing industrial

growth, and of course suppressing job creation.

The illogic of punitive tariffs applies equally to cocoa taxes. So long as

government insists on paying farmers below-market prices, the rational incentive

to beat the system through smuggling will persist, damn the consequences.

The best response then to corruption is not the heavy-handedness, even the

draconian measures, of the past, or the emotional responses of the present, but

a continuous, credible, and transparent process of institutional regeneration

and policy recalibration, taking cognizance of changed circumstances and the

need to do things differently at different times for better results.

The evidence suggests that some efforts were made in this regard in the past,

but the fact that the rot persists at the ports and other corners of the

bureaucracy indicates that either not enough was done, or the wrong solutions

were applied, or some combination of these and other factors. Something

certainly went wrong somewhere.

Forceful, purposely and decisive leadership may well make the difference this

time around. Let’s give it a try.

Credit: Nii Moi Thompson