"You people don't understand what's going on; Mahama doesn't want to be bothered about corruption. But when it comes out in the open and it makes too much noise, that's when he will act. Even that, a Commission of Inquiry is as far as he is willing to go because he doesn't want to mess with the people who helped him to gain power." These are the exact words of a high-ranking government officer who is also an ardent NDC party faithful. And these are the words that have best described the modus operandi of this Mahama administration.
And keeping to script, another incident, though not about corruption, but of police brutality, has captured the headlines. The cries of condemnation have been uniform across the length and breadth of the country. Only this time, President Mahama himself joined the condemnation, albeit half-heartedly, and followed up by ordering an inquiry into the incident. While NPP-USA issues this partial approval of the president's reaction, which is a departure from his usual "yentie obiara" stance, we more forcefully remind him that the nation will not accept another fruitless inquiry that results in nothing.
If President Mahama has any track record at all, it is his long list of commissions of inquiry that has thus far led to no prosecution, no firing of government officials, not even a slap on any wrist. NPP-USA wonders if the president takes pride in wasting Ghanaians' time and money on these fruitless inquiries, or is he simply incompetent about how to proceed beyond setting them up, or both? Otherwise, why bother to spend the resources to set up committee after committee if he will not act on their findings?
Since this NDC government came to power, many of the countless instances of corruption have led to the setting up of some commission of inquiry or other. But those commissions are precisely where those cases have died. Ghana lost GHC1.045 billion at GYEEDA. The case, along with any possible prosecutions died on the desk of a commission of inquiry. SADA not only lost millions, but also lost trees and guinea fowls. But the commission of inquiry that was set up has yet to hold anyone responsible. And who can forget about Brazilgate? Filthy accounting, a buffet of pilferage by government officials, government-sanctioned money laundering of $3 million, NDC foot soldiers seeking political asylum in Brazil, all culminated in a national embarrassment of global proportions. After another commission of inquiry, and the reassigning and/or promotion of the culprits, not a single word has been heard about the outcome.
SUBAH, National Lotteries, Merchant Bank sale, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, and many more areas where NDC functionaries working in government have stolen millions from the nation's coffers have been greeted with commissions of inquiry, hoodwinking Ghanaians that Mahama is doing something about corruption, only for these cases to die a natural death. And now are Ghanaians supposed to be impressed by the president calling for the police to police itself, when that same police has broken the law? President Mahama must know that it is in his own interest to ensure that an independent body with powers to prosecute investigates the police force. Otherwise he can take his half-baked intervention and shove it.
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