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Why Ghana Is Stumbling
Dr. George B. N. Ayittey
January 05, 2016
About five years ago, Ghana was hailed as the country to
watch. Pres. Obama had visited the country in 2009. The
country had discovered oil and in 2011 chalked up a 14.4
percent rate of growth– one of the highest in the world at
that time. Its stardom, however was very short-lived. The
economy slowed considerably to less than 5% rate of growth
in 2015 and is now asking the IMF for a bailout. What
happened? Government foibles, corruption, reckless
profligacy, among others, sank Ghana's economic fortunes.
Ghana’s government finances are in shambles. Expenditures
have careened out of control. A multitude of parallel
institutions and bloated bureaucracy have created a huge
government workforce of over 700,000 workers and a wage bill
that consumes 70 percent of the budget. The bloated
bureaucracy in Ghana and the size of the government has
grown so rapidly that it is suffocating the economy.
In 1997, there were 88 cabinet and regional ministers plus
their deputy ministers in Ghana with a population of 25
million. In 2004, the number had reached 92 but now it has
shot up to 97. [The US, with a population of 300 million,
has 40 secretaries and assistant secretaries.] In addition,
we have ministers of state at the presidency, presidential
staffers, advisors, Council of State, etc. How many advisors
does the president need? Then we have at each ministry,
principal secretaries, deputy principal secretaries,
assistant deputy principal secretaries, etc. Each one of
them must have:
• A government bungalow
• A Pajero (SUV),
• A saloon car for Madam
• A garden boy,
• A cook,
• A day watchman,
• A night watchman,
• Security guard,
• Utility bills paid by the government
Where is my Cutlass? You see many of these perks were
created during the colonial period to entice Europeans – say
Englishmen – to serve in the colonies and clearly made no
sense to retain them after independence. But the whiteman
enjoyed them; so too must we.
In fact, there are some high government officials who for
the past 25 years have not paid a single pesewa in rent or
utility bills. Most infuriating is that, at the end of
their service, they want the government bungalows sold to
them at fire sale prices with loans from the same
government! Haba!
Ghana’s public sector is riddled with overspending, wasteful
practices, willful extravagance with public funds, and
financial irregularities and profligacy. Too many ministries
and government agencies mean overlapping jurisdiction and
functions and soaring government expenditures Ghost workers
abound – over 15,000 -- on government payrolls and their
salaries collected by living workers. Judges are on the
take, some caught demanding bribes <http://bit.ly/1RfooZs>
Ever so hungry for revenue, the government taxes anything
that moves: petrol taxes and IVUUM! 40% increase! Water
rates – that is, if you are lucky to have it – KEC&HUUM! 60%
increase! Mobile phone rates KABOOOM! A whopping 80%
increase! Then there is airport tax, vampire tax, and even
latrine fees
So what happened to all the revenue that was expected to
flow from the new-found oil wells? Squandered even before
the oil wells came on tap. Part was mortgaged to secure a $3
billion loan from China. Don't ask what they did with that
loan.
So now the deficit is 12% of GDP, which is outrageous. Since
they have exhausted all potential sources of revenue, the
only other option they have is to cut government spending.
But this option is politically risky. Cutting spending may
involve sacking civil servants and ending some government
programs, which may alienate key political constituencies
and supporters. Fitch, an international credit rating
agency, twice downgraded the country’s bond rating to a
notch above junk status.. Hence the knock at the IMF's door
for a bailout. http://bit.ly/UKEfpj
The supply of electricity, water and other social services
is spasmodic. And it seems nobody is held accountable. True,
the Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor, resigned, falling
over his own sword. He promised to fix the power problem by
the end of 2015, or else he would resign. To be fair, he
can't be blamed for the electricity outages, which dates all
the way back to the Rawlings era.
Across Africa, there has been a grotesque failure of
governments to increase generating capacity to meet
exponentially rising demand for electricity due to exploding
populations, increased use of electronics, iPads, mobile
devices, etc. Even South Africa suffers from load shedding
and brownouts.
Even then, Dr Donkor could have refused to resign or Pres.
Mahama could have refused to accept his resignation and
there was nothing anybody could do about that. But let me be
cynical in this posting. Here is a fact: the President can
loot the Treasury and put, say $17 million, in a Swiss Bank
account and there is nothing anybody can do about
that,. DITTO for several members of the ruling elite. What
happened to Alfred Woyome?
You may huff and puff or howler all you want and the
newspapers can print all the corruption scandal they want ;
it won't change anything. One or two officials may resign or
receive a slap on their wrists and reshuffled to other posts
and that's just about it. So why does the rot continue and
why are we so helpless in stopping it?
The answer is this: The political system in Ghana has no
institutional checks and balances. Some Africans use to
lament that If only we have a strong leader – like Buhari,
Kagame, etc. But that is only wishful thinking, displaying a
woeful lack of understanding of the problem.
Recall what Pres. Obama said in Ghana in July 2009: "Africa
doesn't need strongmen; it needs strong INSTITUTIONS." The
problem we have in Ghana and many other African countries is
that we do not have strong institutions.
For effective checks and balances, there are 7 critical
institutions:
1. An independent judiciary
2. An independent electoral commission
3. An independent and free media
4. An independent central bank
5. An autonomous Parliament
6. An efficient civil service
7. A neutral and professional security forces
Each one of these should be able to check a president who is
out of control. For example, if the president is a crook, or
flouts the Constitution, he can be impeached by Parliament.
But the 1992 Constitution, created a very powerful Executive
with control over ALL the institutions which are supposed to
check the arbitrary use of his own powers. Very nice. Under
that Constitution, the cockroach at the top appoints,
• All the Supreme Court judges,
• The Governor of the central bank,
• The Speaker of Parliament
• The Commander of the security forces
• Some members of the media commission
• 7 of the 11 members of the police commission
• 15 of the 24 members of the Council of State,
• 33% of all the members of District Assemblies
Very nice. So how does Parliament impeach the president when
the Speaker is appointed by the very same president?
Or how
does the Electoral Commissioner tell the president that he
has lost an election when he is appointed by the same
president?
Or how does one stop looting of the treasury when
the governor of the central bank is appointed by the
president?
This kind of lunacy became apparent in Nigeria in February
2014 When Lamidu Sanusi, the former governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria. reported that some $20 billion in oil
revenue was missing, immediately it was he, the governor,
who was sacked by Pres. Goodluck Jonathan for financial
recklessness and misconduct! Lord have Mercy!
A similar case
occurred in Ghana in 2013. When Martin Amidu, the former
Atty. Gen., refused to authorize payment to Woyome on
suspicion of fraud, it was he, Amidu, who was sacked.
Now tell me this: So who checks the president if he steals
election or loots the central bank? So where are the checks
and balances in this system? Smart, huh? We should have our
heads examined! With all our high-powered education, we saw
nothing wrong with that idiotic 1992 Constitution? In fact,
we crowed that Ghana's 1992 Constitution was a blend of the
American and French constitutions. Imagine.
Even the backward traditional system of government does not
put up with this kind of buffoonery. Even they understand
the meaning of conflict of interest . For example, the
Council of Elders is a check against a bad chief It can
remove such a chief. But a chief cannot appoint or remove
any of the Councilors. It would be sheer stupidity to have a
chief appoint members of a Council, which can remove him.
But this is precisely the kind of lunacy was what the 1992
Constitution dished out to Ghanaians. How do you expect the
Supreme Court to rule that the president has an election
when all the judges on the court are appointed by the
president – as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt?
OK In 2010, we came to our senses and realized that there
was something wrong, so we set up a Constitutional Review
Commission and after two years of work, it came up with its
recommendations. And guess what it did: it gave the
recommendations to the same powerful Executive, whose wings
it wanted to clip, to approve of them! Lunacy triple
squared.
It is like coming up a plan to make your house burglar
proof, after being robbed several times in the past. Then
you give the plan to the same burglar will robbed in the
past, for approval. Makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it
How did this come about? It happened because we allowed half
educated soldier – Rawlings – to dictate the type of
Constitution he liked for Ghana! We had it completely
backward.
Look, if you want to write a good Constitution for an
African country, you do not allow the head of state to come
anyway near the constitutional writing process. Rather, you
assume that the state is necessarily EVIL and the cockroach
who heads it is a potential dictator and a bandit. Then you
put in place the necessary measures, checks and balances to
prevent him from becoming a thief or a despot. Basic common
sense. The more power the state has, the least free are its
citizens.
If you think this political philosophy is copied from
abroad, check Africa's own traditional system, where some
ethnic groups such as the Somali and Igbo were so
distrustful of the state that they chose not to have leader
at all. Elsewhere, those who chose to have leaders, hemmed
them in with a slew of injunctions upon injunctions and
taboos. For example, they were not allowed to meet foreign
visitors alone. Here is my favorite one, the Yoruba Oona
cannot venture out of his palace , except under the cover of
darkness. He can be a dictator if he wants to. He can
venture out of his palace and bark orders all he wants but
his people would be fast asleep – snoring. Smart people, the
Yoruba.
Here are other injunctions in our traditional system to
which a chief must swear an oath of office. For example,
among the injunctions, are the following:
Do not abuse and insult us
Do not go after other people's wives
Do not be a drunkard,
Do not steal our money,
A new chief must swear to this oath and if he breaks any of
the injunctions he is removed immediately, not after four
years in office. But note something: This oath is not
dictated or written according to their whims of a Rawlings
because it wouldn't make sense. Imagine a chief saying,
"Give me all the powers and I won't abuse them, I won't
steal your money, and I won't go after your women." Even
illiterate peasants wouldn't fall for that But that is
precisely what we did We allowed Rawlings to do what he
liked
with the 1992 Constitution, written according to his
dictates in creating a very powerful executive. In 1993, his
security agents dumped human waste in the offices of
newspapers critical of him. Nobody was held to account.
Same thing happened elsewhere in much of postcolonial
Africa. Instead of treating the head of state as a potential
despot or thief, we hailed him as a MESSIAH because he won
independence for the country or saved it from some
catastrophe. Ghanaians used to refer to Rawlings as "J J" -
Junior Jesus. Now you know the rest of the story. He was not
the problem; we were. Then we gave the Messiah all the powers
he demanded. And when he started abusing those powers, we
looked like complete idiots without any countervailing
powers to check him. Look at Mugabe in Zimbabwe, dos Santos
in Angola, etc
So how do you solve the problem? In the case of Ghana, the
entire Constitution will have to be rewritten with the
president made a servant of the people, and not the other
way around. More importantly, Parliament, should be
separated from and made more powerful than the executive. If
the president misbehaves, Parliament ought to be able to cut
off his shua! (smile). The parliament that we currently have
is toothless, useless than rubber stamp.
Changing the Constitution would require two thirds majority
in parliament, which neither party is likely to have in the
foreseeable future. Parliament can set up a bipartisan
commission. But then why would the speaker make such an
effort when he is appointed by the all-powerful president?
This is one of the ugliest and despicable legacies of the
Rawlings regime to Ghana.
Dr. George B. N. Ayittey
President, Free Africa Foundation, Washington, DC
January 05, 2016
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