facebook address: [email protected] some of the press releases and the news items that I read on ghanaweb are very disheartening indeed. where does all these lawlessness and generalized corruption comes from ? has ghana been transformed into a jungle by her leaders so soon? has ghana become a lawless country ? am surprised that in ghana anyone can stand, take the law into his own hands,and go and demolish peoples houses? have ghanaians thrown overboard the priciple of the rule of law whichs been one of the major traditional priciples upon which the ghanaian society has always been founded over the years? upon what bases did the TDC demolish peoples houses at Tema ? the same things supposed to have happened in Kumasi and Legon. in a country of rule of law, when you are walking in the street and smoeone slaps you, you are not supposed to hit back yourself, you are supposed to report to the police who will use legal means to redress the problem,unless you are forced to act urgently to defend your life. was that the case of the TDC? are our parliamentarians above the law ? is there no law in ghana that forbids public and civil servants from taking advantage of their positions to draw financial or material benefits whatsoever from the public ? have we forgotten so soon our tribulations in the 1980s? when the military takeover power bcos of this type of lawlessness and dish into state coffers to enrich themselves, heres hue and cry, but when civilian theftnocrats take over the reins of government and sell the whole nation for some few dollars, our intellectuals dont find anything wrong with that. are some people more ghanaians than others by vertue of their certificates? whats good for the gooses also good for the gender. in ghana some of our intellectuals are too conceited,selfish, egocentric, ostentatious, and voluble, and apathetic to our national intersts. they are demagues. these leaders lack wisdom, vision and commonsence. how can you live a rich life when nothing functions in the country you live in ? ( the ghana airways for instance didnt go bunkrupt during the periode of a military regime) no wonder that ghanas always at the same stage of development despite the enormous potentials of our economy. no wonder that after over 50 years of independence we cannot operate an air company. our leaders have sold our national interests,and opportunities to multinational companies. last week Mahama was saying that ghana needed more development poles bcos we cannot always depend on only cocoa and gold to satisfy our economic needs. that may be true but if each time we install an intrastracture and allow individual ghanaians to sell it and use the money to enrich their personal lives how can we develop the poles of development he was talking about ? one of the main difficulty we face as a nations our lack of political maturity and economic awareness. ghanaians always think they can sit their legs crossed watching TV while others serve their political and economic interests. we have been manipulated and brain washed over the years to accept and adopt an insidious system of academic despotism which does not easily lend itself to description. this academically despotic system by which we are ruled in GH does not augur well for a popular democracy. the mass of the people are consulted only during election times but are not really allowed to participate in the government of their country. some of our intellectuals go in for academic titles not to promote the cause of social, economic and scientific advancement of their country but to impression and scramble for jobs. however, democracys always been a permanent and a perpetual struggle to maintain control over the exercise of political power by the elected, delegated representaves. it has been defined by Abraham Lincoln as the government of the people, for the people and by the people government by the people, means every citizens supposed to participate in the government of his country in a true and authentic democracy. this may take the form of belonging to an opposition party, being a member of the government party, a pressure group, an interest group, or a lobby. lobbying however, is in noway a licence to take bribes as it seems to be the case in ghana. to my mind all the traditional methodes of participation in the government of ones country may not be enough for a 21st century society, especially in a developing african country like ghana, cos man cannot trust his kind. even in the bible, God said,all human beings are sinners and liars. He went on to curse, in proverbs (or is it in the book of psalms?) : woe onto those who put their trust in human leaders I believe that the constitution and the law, must do more to encourage every citizen to participate in the government of his country cos this to my mind is the only, and the only effective way, to check corruption and thereby liberate the economic development valves for the needed funds, for an effective economic take off. before I make some few suggestions for reorganising the ghanaian society, I would like to propose to his excenllency Dramani Mahama to set up, as a matter of urgency, a commission composed of men chosen at random, from the rank and file of the military, the police service and the civilian public to investigate the allegations of corruption hovering over the head and neck of our parliamentarians. not only this. I also suggest that all those who have held a ministerial ( or government) or parliamentary positions from the end of Rawlings military regime to this date, are vetted by an open public commission. I advice that no favours shown to anybody cos when you show favour to one person, you have to show it to the next, then to the rest and the whole nation and that will result to lawlessness. secondly these civil servants have set bad precedents and an economic standard for their colleagues who may also want to attain such standards by fair or foul means and this may become a vicious cercle. I suggest that those who accept to denounce themselves and accept to bequeath to the state, the money they have stolen from her shall not be made to serve prison terms, if found guilty. they must however return a certain per centage to the state every year. I will now make the ff suggestions for the reorganisation of our political system. I suggest that : the ghanaian constitution makes it obligatory for every ghanaian citizen who have attained the advanced level of the GCE (or whatever you may call it now) to do a 2 year political national service before he gets to the age of 65 part of the human resources made available shall be used to operate, and manage pressure and interest groups constitutional provisions shall be made for the creation of district and regional parliaments alongside the national parliament in Accra and the present district councils (they may operate in the so many classrooms vacant after school) the district parliaments may treat both local and national matters especially ensuring that the national government and parliamentarians are accountable to the people the district parliaments may have the prerogative to dissolve their regional parliament by 2/3 majority vote in congress (ie when they meet as a regional assembly) the regional parliaments may have the prerogative to dissolve the national paliaments by 2/3 majority vote in congress the national parliament may have the prerogative to destitute the President by 2/3 majority vote but the President can also dissolve parliament if in his mind, the national situation calls for it the district parliaments shall be dissvolved neither by the President , neither by the regional parliaments, neither by the national parliament and the regional parliaments shall be dissolved neither by the President and neither by the national parliament the work of the regional and district parliaments may consist essentially of controlling the work of the national government and the national parliament to ensure good governance and accountability to the people no elected representative may exercise more 3 political mandats for the same job no elected representative may exercise more than 4 mandats whether or not hes apponted for the same job no elected representatative may accumulalate a local mandat and a national mandat for more than 4 year transional periode all the emolumennts whatsoever, in kind or cash paid to members of national and local government, and parliamentarians shall be publish in the government gazette and the district parliaments shall be officially informed so that they in turn publish this information in local parliamentary gazettes all public and civil servants must declare their assets yearly all public and civil servants who occupy senior executive posts must undertake never to leave ghana and ressettle in another country ( they shall not live outside the country for more than 3 months in just one stretch or 4 months in just a year after leaving office) all civil servants who have occupied senior executive post shall be made to declare their assets each year until retirement all civil servants who have occupied senior executive posts shall be made to explain the origin of their assets that they might not be to able to acquire with the emoluments of their official job no senior executive officer may be allowed to keep a bank account abroad without informing the revenue department
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 09:34:29 +0000
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