For all his perceived spirituality and pious posturing, Pres Mills is regrettably
turning out to be the ultimate hypocrite in the country. I hate to say this but we
must call a spade a spade and nothing more. Indeed his so called asomdweehene tag
and doggged humility may even be cleverly choreographed pretensions to deceive the
unsuspecting ghanaian. why do i say this? There have been numerous allegations of
corruption levelled against govt officials from Dr Hannah Bissiw to party officials
like Asiedu Nketia and the govt has simply turned a blind eye, and now with
the WOYOME case, which to all intents and purposes borders on an NDC conspiraccy to
dupe the country 58 million cedis, Pres Mills has swung into operation a kangaroo
investigation by EOCO whose remit has been seriously limited because they in the ndc
that benefitted from this whopping sum want to be insulated from this
investigation. A president who when in opposition had said that
even newspaper allegations would be sufficient for him to ask his appointees to
step aside and be thoroughly investigated is now doing completely the opposite. And
indeed, from day one, when he was confronted with the muntaka scandal, he
monumentally flopped and missed the governance accountability boat.
But the focus of this present article is on something else, which for me renders
the ndc and prof mills the most deceiful of all the regimes in recent memory. When
the previous NPP administraion promulgated the procurement act(663) to enhance
accountability in governance, the main mechanism for procurement jobs by ministries
and govt depts was to be competitive tendering,so that corruption in procurement
which accounted for over 65%of the public purse could be addressed and the saved
corruption monies used to alleviate poverty in the country. But ever since the ndc
came to power and especially since Mr Sallas Mensah was appointed the boss of the
procurement authority, the scale of corruption that has ensued in the country is
beyond description. A recent procurement audit by the Ghana Public Procurement
Observatory (GPPO) from 2009 to 2011 indicates that over 90% of all the
procurement by govt depts have been done by single or sole
sourcing, which act 663 stipulated as the emergency window in situations of extreme
urgency.Under this window, in order to save time, the govt dept merely selects the
supplier it is most comfortable with ,in terms of speed and quality of delivery,
then writes to procurement authority which appraises the case and then gives
approval for the dept to engage the identified supplier for the procurement in
question.
But since the ndc came to power,sole sourcing has rather been the norm and all
competition in the tendering process has been effectively eliminated. Now if you go
to the mdas, virtually all of them are going sole sourcing, making mockery of the
procurement law ,and returning us to the pre act 663 situation. The question that
begs to be asked is did we go or did we come?.Seriously did we go or did we
come?. And all this is happening in "righteous" pres mills govt. And what makes it
even worse is that, in sole sourcing situations, because there is no price
competion, the suplier enjoys some kind of monopoly whic encourages them to inflate
cost of contracts to embody margins for crook govt and ndc party officials.
Is it then any wonder that structures put up at the vrious mdas and district
assemblies are quoted at prices that appear to be highly inflated. in fact in most
respects this phenomenon is even worse today than when the npp was in power.
Therefore we are calling on the govt, as a matter of urgency, to disclose all the
procurement details of the various mdas especially those with threshold values of
over 20000 gh cedis that have happened on the watch of pres atta mills and to prove
that our assertion of massive corruption in procurement activities of govt depts
under the ndc is inaccurate. Until that is done , some of us will continue tolet the
rest of ghanaians know how corrupt this administration has become. Additionally the
president must let us know who and who in govt have declared their assets as the
information we are having here is very discouraging.
I voted for mills thinking that he will do better in fighting corruption, but fter
only three years in power, the houses being built by ndc functionaries and the scale
of corruption that the ndc are displaying in society now are very scary ,and this
will cost him dearly in the elections, propaganda asomdweehene or not, and whether
the many loans being borrowed by govt(some with questionable conditions)will will
soon turn ghana into a hipc country or not.
Dr. Ephraim Tetteh
Anti corruption crusader
Biscayne bay, Miami
