By Raymond Archer
The two oldest professions in the world are prostitution and politics. Ronald
Reagan 40th US President once said: “Politics is supposed to be the
second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears very close
resemblance to the first,” which is prostitution. And why not, he is damn right.
I admit that there are still some honest politicians in this world and it is
unfair to describe politicians who have devoted their life to holding public
office and trying to do something for their people as prostitutes.
However, almost all politicians keep drumming into our ears what a fantastic
sacrificial job they are doing for mother Ghana and yet when it is time to exit
public office, they allocate fat ex-gratia, government cars, government
bungalows and juicy lands to themselves. These are the politicians Ronald Regan
referred to .
The whole of last week, the entire country was awash with some bald headed
orange politicians crying wolf over a purported threat from government to seize
all lands ILLEGALLY acquired by erstwhile NPP government officials and their
cronies.
The case of government is simple: The issue is not that all government lands
sold by the Kufuor administration must be seized. The seizure is only in respect
of those which did not follow the laid down procedure established by the Cabinet
of President Kufuor.
One shameless bald-headed politician had the audacity to threaten the people of
Ghana with a court suit, if trustees of public lands (i.e. the government)
attempted to seize those lands. My immediate reaction to that kind of arrogance
is that it looks as if in Ghana we are prepared to hang the petty thieves and
appoint the great ones to public office. Bob Marley was right in saying that
‘Jah will never give power to a bald head.’
The other politicians, who were beneficiaries of the land looting spree, also
dug into their archives and instigated media publications to the effect that
government officials under the (P)NDC also purchased government lands and
therefore there is no justification in seizing theirs.
Politicians are indeed like acrobats: they keep their balance by saying the
opposite of what they do and that is why sometimes they appear surprised if we
hold them to their own statements.
If politicians elected into public office as trustees of state assets, including
public lands can dream of policies which results in the illegal conversion of
the said lands for their personal use and have the audacity to sue the people
who elected them into office, and then turn around to ask the same people to
vote for them to come and continue their “good works” then God Save our dear
nation.
What is worse is that apart from the fact that the sales themselves were
illegal, the lands were sold at prices equivalent to only 20% of their actual
market value.
I cannot imagine that a public officer looked Ghanaians in the eyes and sold a
piece of plot in airport residential to the Chief Justice for GH¢20,000 when
private plots in the same neighborhood is going for about 20 times the value. I
cannot believe that Justice Georgina Wood looked Ghanaians in the eyes and paid
such a dishonest price for such prime lands.
Her explanation is that she applied for land on the outskirts of town, which by
all reasonable calculations could be cheaper, but somebody called her to say
that her application for that particular plot was not successful but rather she
had been allocated a piece of plot at the plush airport residential area for the
same price.
I am sure that as a lawyer she knows that the value of land at Shirley Ayorkor
Botchway’s Weija area cannot be the same as that of Airport Residential.
I am sure that as a lawyer she also knows too well that if one applied to buy a
Toyota Land cruiser and the application is not successful, one cannot be given a
Peugeot van because they are all four-wheel-drives!
Madam Georgina Wood, I am sure if they allocated you land somewhere in Walewale
or Sandema, as replacement for the one you applied at the outskirts of Accra,
you would have screamed on top of your voice like Ursula Owusu talking on Peace
Fm.
I have heard some pro NPP lawyers, who smoke Cuban Cigars and wear white shoes
with cowboy walking sticks argue that once the transaction was concluded with a
previous government, a new government has no right to raise an eyebrow and that
the beneficiaries should be allowed to enjoy their booty in peace.
I have never been to law school, but just as my friend Yoni Kulendi of
Kulendi@law said onetime that journalism is not an exact profession, I am also
of the humble opinion that the legal profession is the application of common
sense.
It is absolutely balderdash to suggest that no one can touch the illegal sale of
government land because the transaction was concluded. I beg to differ, even an
elementary pupil knows that a contract vitiated by fraud and illegality cannot
be a valid one.
I have been in this country when ordinary people have been charged with the
offence of dishonestly receiving. If the case of government is anything to go
by, that means Cabinet established the rules and regulations regarding how
public lands were to be disposed of and yet, Ministers who were part of the
cabinet decision sold and bought the lands through unapproved criteria, then
they must be charged with the ordinary man’s law or forfeit their money for
wrongful possession of government land.
Why should we as a people allow politicians to cream off public lands and watch
them arrogantly defend their acquisition and parry off criticisms that their
conduct was terribly wrong?
Should we continue to watch them make foolish statements that a decade ago a
government which was voted out of office probably because of such conducts
allowed the wholesale rape of public land? Is this the kind of benchmark we
should allow our politicians to set for themselves?
But isn’t that the reason why this government under President Mills should not
follow the footsteps of the governments who sold State lands to their cronies
and got voted out? If two governments did it and were both voted out, why
should a sensible government which does not want to be voted out follow suit?
Assuming that previous presidents allowed the sale of public lands, is there any
justification for asking another to continue?
DOUBLE STANDARDS
Not too long ago, under President Kufuor, a battalion of BNI operatives were
dispatched to the home of then former Vice President Mills, to seize what they
thought was the illegal possession of some government vehicles. Mills wasn’t
home then, so they arrested his wife, who had not taken possession of the said
vehicle and traumatized her for several hours.
When some of these NPP officials were arrested by the same BNI, they went to
court to say that the BNI had no powers to detain and interrogate a person
without the presence of his or her lawyer. At the time Naadu Mills was being
questioned, where was this law?
The then NPP government defended their actions by saying that as trustees of
state properties they were duty bound to preserve and protect state property and
accused those criticizing the BNI to be nay believers in the rule of law. What
kind of rule of law allows a wife to be traumatized for the actions of her
husband, even granted that her husband was guilty of the offence?
She didn’t just run into the car, she attempted to run! Which means if someone
had died in the accident, that girl would have escaped. Even though tests
revealed she had exceeded the alcohol limit allowable by over 300% she was only
fined GH¢200 and freed. When the story was linked to her father, Nana Akufo
Addo’s defense through his spokespersons was that the daughter is an adult. Wow!
When another citizen crashed his car into that of President Kufuor, he was
immediately arrested and charged for attempting to kill the president and
driving under the influence of illegal substances. His urine and blood samples
were taken and the result they say revealed that he was under the influence of
other illegal substances.
In the case of Nana Addo’s daughter, she was not made to undergo any of such
tests, she was just left off the hook. I dare say if it had been Jerry Rawlings’
son-Kimathi or President Mills’ son, hell would have broken loose in this
country.
In the year 2000, when the NDC was in power, the governments of Ghana and
Nigeria finalized negotiations and contracts were signed between TOR and Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for TOR to purchase 30,000 barrels per day
of Nigerian Crude Oil for a period of one year.
Given TOR’s weak financial position, at the time, the NDC government under
Rawlings gave approval in November 2000 for TOR to negotiate with Vitol S.A of
London to manage the above contract. The lifting of crude oil under the contract
was to commence on February, 2001. The reason for the choice of Vitol was that
the company had been supportive of TOR by giving them supplier’s credit from
November 1999 to 2000 when the NDC lost power.
When President Kufuor was elected into office in 2001, he abrogated the
TOR-Vitol/NNPC management contract and rather surprisingly introduced Sahara
Energy Resources of Nigeria, which was a new company, to manage the
Government-to-Government contract.
According to President Kufuor, he was exercising his prerogative. Sahara Energy
did not participate in the international competitive bidding by the
international oil marketing companies, which were responsible for the
importation of crude oil from 1985 t0 2000. Ironically, Kufuor’s government
prided itself in being the apostles of the rule of law.
But since the NDC assumed power in 2009, barely a day goes by without the NPP
folks crying foul about government changing things from the way NPP did them
whilst they were in office. Even the restoration of the name Flag Staff House
for Jubilee House for the presidential palace built by Kufuor resulted in the
NPP folks crying that there are attempts to obliterate the legacy of the NPP.
Some even said that Flag Staff House was a colonial name so there was no need to
use it, forgetting that for eight years, The Osu Castle, which was a slave
castle was where Kufuor run his government from!
Our country cannot progress with these kind of politicians. Whether we are just
moving forward or moving forward in the right direction, public office holders
must see themselves as public servants and conduct themselves as such.
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