Per Diem: Holding Kwaku Baako, Jnr In Contempt of Integrity And Transparency!!!!!!
The real scandal in Ghana is not the ridiculous ban the government had slapped on the generals and our ex-president but, rather, how much the president is extravagantly spending on his recent trip to the United States of America including how much individuals like Kwaku Baako, Jnr are taking as per diem. The government’s ban was just a way to swallow up the real financial scandal behind the per diem allowances paid to individuals who travel with him outside the country on state business. In a strained response to a newspaper - The Len - report as to whether he took $6500 as per diem as a member of the presidential press corp to the United States, Mr. Malik Kwaku Baako, Jnr demonstrated once more the absolute contempt members of the political elite/class have for the integrity of our system of government. I am talking, of course, about our bankrupt political system where those in power including the president and his cronies like Kwaku Baako, Jnr arrogantly think they are not accountable for what they do with our money including paying themselves per diem allowances. Their continuing contempt for those legal and democratic rules that superficially protect them to live comfortably while millions of our of folks painfully endure intense poverty is the only reason why they are morbidly afraid of a coup d’etat - whatever that means in this day and age! I said "superficially" because one day, one day - sooner, rather than later - a real leader with moral and legal integrity will make them account for their stewardship of the nation’s financial resources!
KWAKU BAAKO IS THE SOURCE!
The following facts are uncontestable:
1. Kwaku Baako, Jnr, the editor-in-chief of the Crusading Guide and a consumate NPP supporter, is a member of the press corp that is accompanying the president on his two weeks tour of the United States.
2. That Kwaku Baako, Jnr is taking per diem allowance and this allowance comes from our already depleted national coffers
AND
3. That although he is not denying taking per diem, he is contemptuously refusing to tell us how much he is taking! And, in fact, has the moral impudence to tell us to get that information from the "Auditor-General, Chief of Staff or Finance Ministry"! What insult! Why should we seek how much he is taking as per diem when he is the SOURCE? Or, is he telling us that although he is taking monies from the national coffers, he doesn’t know how much he is taking?
The narrow issue here is: Why is Kwaku Baako stubbornly refusing or afraid to tell us how much he is taking as per diem?
This simple question implicates so many vital principles: Needless to state here that I feel horrible when individuals like Kwaku Baako who are on the air twenty hours a day preaching about the virtues of stability and democracy are the very human beings stabbing our system of government in the back with such irresponsible and, possibly, criminal conduct. How do they expect to stabilize our system of government if they are not truthful, honest, frank and straight forward in providing answers to such simple questions that border on financial propriety or impropriety? In other words, how do they expect to mine the confidence and trust of the people if they continue to play monkey games with the principles of accountability, probity, transparency and sunshine? In fact, the same principles they profess to believe in!
We must understand why Kwaku Baako is insulting us in our faces: We live in a system where we have come to celebrate in a most disgusting manner greed, corruption and crime as a way of life - a decadent system where criminals are protected by the powers that be simply because they belong to a particular political tradition. In fact, government has become a well-oiled vehicle through which those in power have unrestrained access to the nation’s financial resources for their private comfort. Tellingly, government has become a vehicle for people in high political offices and their cronies to steal from the national coffers with reckless and cheeky ease and nothing is done to them because they are the law! Yes, we live in a nation where transparency and accountability have been banished from government life. In their place has emerged the culture of impunity - a destabilizing culture where your political party determines what kind of economic, social, political and legal justice you get. Yes, that is the weak foundation we are building for our already fragile democracy! Yes, that is what the government annoyingly calls "we are moving forward"!
Despite all his feigned annoyance at the Lens’ report, one thing is absolutely certain: Kwaku Baako is simply afraid or too embarrassed to reveal the amount he is taking as per diem! He knows pretty well that there is no way on this earth the Auditor General, the Chief of Staff and/or the Minister of Finance are going to reveal or devulge how much he is taking as per diem or how much the state is going to pay for the president’s trip! For the removal of doubt, all attempts to get this information from these sources had proved futile!
Their colossal arrogance and religious attachment to excessive secrecy in this serious matter have everything to do with the fact that they cannot garner the moral and/or legal integrity to explain their possible criminal and/or immoral conduct because per diem allowances are not supposed to be pocketed. They are meant to cover legitimate expenses while one is on state business outside the country. I have every reason to believe that the figure being spent on Kwaku Baako and the rest of the presidential entourage will blow our minds if it is ever divulged to the public! Indeed, what society are building for ourselves where people in power and their political cronies continue to throw the principles of accountability and transparency to the dogs just to satisfy their personal aggrandizement? Is stonewalling now part of the value system that undergirds our democratic dispensation? Where is our outrage?
It is darkly hypocritical for Kwaku Baako to tell us that although he is not motivated by money, he is not prepared to disclose or reveal the amount he is being paid as per diem! What does he take us for? Gullible fools? Instead of telling us how much he is "fleecing" us for, he is telling is how the NDC government didn’t allow some of them to travel with our ex-president on official trips outside the country. Always blaming the NDC for their own legal and moral inadequacies has become their refrain! Kwaku Baako and his cronies are behaving as if they were voted into power to repeat the same mistakes of the NDC or even make them worse! What does he have against "positive change" and "zero tolerance for corruption"? How so shameless!
We are, therefore, respectfully calling on Kwaku Baako, Jnr and the rest of the presidential entourage to tell us how much they are taking as per diem and shame the devil.
Respectfully submitted.
WILLIAM ANTWI AKA BAFO (OYOO BUSANGA).
