Ghanaians mostly feel sad and weep over growing corruption
Ghanaians are overtly religious, but they are also generally hypocritical. They would often react emotionally to matters rather than critically think, to the point that they often fail to look at issues dispassionately – and so in the face of grinding and debilitating corruption, they simply feel sad and weep.
And contrary to the fundamental requirements of religion that demand that adherents abhor materialism, Ghanaians have also increasingly become materialistic to a fault, to the extent that even clergymen and women engage in illegal and immoral acts to acquire money and wealth.
The insatiable desire for wealth has so permeated the Ghanaian society to the point where long held social norms of caring for one another, protecting the communal property and desisting from acts clearly considered as criminal are getting lost in the melee to grab, especially money at any cost.
Social mores have been so trashed and discarded to a point where acquiring money and wealth through genuine means has become increasingly impossible. Dishonest means have become sure ways of making money in Ghana and political clout and links have become the oil that lubricates the process.
Most people are hired and appointed to public office because they are connected to people in high political office, belong to political parties or have made contributions to the party or its successful candidates in an election, and not on merit. It is therefore, not required of them to act truthfully and in accordance to laid down regulations, they are expected to return the favour, at least in the discharge of their public office responsibilities and often, they ‘eat from their jobs’, as it is said. They use their positions to make extra money.
Often enamoured by political cronyism most people see their positions as legitimate means of acquiring wealth at the expense of the bigger public.
For instance, most of the people working at the Ghana Passport Office seem to have strong political connections that earned them the jobs in the first place and therefore, they feel entrenched and protected. The place appears to be run like a cartel. It is almost impossible to apply for and acquire a passport through official means smoothly. The official processing period for passports are a week and two weeks, depending on the cost of the forms. There are two types of forms – one sells for GH¢50 and the other for GH¢100. If an applicant buys the GH¢50 form according to the Office’s own rules the passport should be ready in 15 working days, and the GH¢100 form or expedited processing form, should be ready in seven working days.
But anyone who has ever applied for a passport in Ghana knows that the process can take several months or even more than a year. The Office has given several reasons for these delays, which have been causing consternation to applicants. They initially blamed the type of printing machine they were using. But then new ones were purchased and installed this year, but the situation hasn’t changed.
Taking advantage of the situation, employees at the Office have all become passport contractors – they charge various amounts from GH¢400 to GH¢1000 to help speed up the processing for applicants who can afford to pay.
The Ghana Police, are known to be always on top of any survey or study on corruption in Ghana and yet they are tolerated.
They use speed guns that are not calibrated, point them at drivers and accuse them of speeding above limits and then pretend to proceed to process them for court. They do that knowing drivers often wouldn’t like to go to court and therefore, would accede to pay bribes.
Indeed, in some cases where some drivers have refused to pay the bribes and had gone to court, it turned out that the police had connived with the magistrate and these drivers seen to be ‘too known’ or insisting on their rights were given harsh sentences or fines. And when the fines are paid, it is believed that the court shares it with the police. The recent Anas video on judges and magistrates receiving bribes to twist justice proves that point.
Official corruption is uncovered every now and then, but all that Ghanaians do is to weep for Ghana!
On a few occasions some courageous Ghanaians and groups have gone to court to seek sanctions on the perpetrators, but over all, citizens would only lament, vent out on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and then wait for the next corruption scandal.
The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2014 ranked Ghana 61 out of 175 countries.
On the Mo Ibrahim Governance Index for 2015 Ghana was ranked 7th, but with a worrying observation. The Index noted that governance in the country has been deteriorating since 2011. That also speaks volumes about the fight against corruption.
In the last week alone, the country has been hit by two obvious acts of possible corruption – the AMERI Energy power deal and the use of an amount of GH¢3.6 million to paint and paste stickers with images of the current and former presidents on 116 buses bought with loans. It turned out the company that did the actual work was paid far less than the state paid for the job.
When this news broke what did Ghanaians do?
They went on radio and on social media to show how sad they were for Ghana, and to weep. As if to say weeping and feeling sad, two emotional expressions were enough to stop corruption.
Ghanaians must do more. People with factual information about corruption should go to the media. Anti-corruption bodies must do more than they are doing now and fully exercise the powers conferred on them by the Constitution.
While the cost of corruption on the country is not known in terms of how much the country loses, the effects are all over the place. The broken down health system, poor education system, loss of confidence in the criminal justice system, growing unemployment and loss of faith in political leadership and cynicism.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
Email: [email protected]