A Peter Principle. Critical News. 3rd June, 2012

Sydney Casely-Hayford, sydney@bizghana.com

There is a certain beauty in nature.  After the rain, sunrays break the sky and caress the earth in soft and gentle layers, raising hope for the next rain and the next sun massage.  You know the flowers will bloom again and nature will feed the earth with hope for another day and food for mankind.  There is also a consistency in nature’s way, a way that over the years has stabilized our future, until mankind interferes.

Which we did last Friday when the Ghana Sports Authority floodlights failed and Koku Anyidohu dismissed a non-existing (ECG had no such position as Koku mentioned) official from the ECG and threatened to annex others in the chain on the orders of President Mills.  The fact that the lights were all powered by the Baba Yara stadium genset, did not feature in his tirade.  Watching the Ghana/Lesotho match, I wondered why ECG would leave the lights on in the stands and switch off the floodlights.  Made no sense until the ECG official came to explain.  Koku of course did not hear this part.  Bent on showing some “Milling balls” he fired them in the name of the President.

Saturday on Joy Fm’s News File, he admitted that he did so without the President’s authority.  Now we are speculating whether this was really the case or whether he is a fall guy for the President, which is what the opposition NPP would prefer it to be.  I think Koku is in knee deep.  He can resign if he has that nobility, because I doubt he will be sacked.

Betty Mouild Iddrssu has not been arrested yet.  Sacked from Government, she now has to salvage her reputation from a Cabinet denial that it had no knowledge of the arrangements she made with CP to pay €94 million.  For her sake, let me say that there is no way Cabinet could not have known.  If the Attorney-General’s office can initiate a transaction to pay such a colossal amount of money and the Ministry of Finance, which is a cabinet position heard nothing and neither the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, nor the Central Bank heard anything, and they went ahead and honored a payment only on the say so of the AG?  We are seriously “effed up!”.  How much more of this is there?

This week we finally released the Census figures.  It has procured its own victims.  Dr. Grace Bediako was not there to see the end to what she started.  Auntie Philo Nyarko had the final say and we analysts will now do our best to figure out the data.  Importantly, we are 24.7 million strong, of which roughly 12.5 million are registered voters.  In the past, approximately 9 million persons vote in Ghana elections.  This time we have all the detail of the population by constituency from two sources.  Credible?  Even if not, we are going to start from there.  I predict that by the next election our confidence in the register will be very solid.  No Christians should pray on this, please.

JJ, FONKAR and One Other v the Chiefs of Aflao.  Because I have never agreed with nor liked his Jerryship, I should be biased on this story.  But, where do the chiefs of an area in Ghana start determining who can and cannot hold a rally on their land?  Way out of order, a group of chiefs in Aflao attempted to derail the June 4 celebration.  Though some of us do not agree with this celebration, I see it as a kind of “political bench-marking”.  For as long as JJ is alive, I welcome this reminder of the sort of disservice one can do for a nation.  Ever since we collectively agreed to protect JJ and others in the 1992 constitution by signing away our right to prosecute treason at the highest order, not just once but three times and forget that Ghanaians have cheated themselves out of their right to treat everyone equally, we now have to condone a group of chiefs who want to usurp the law and ride above laid down procedure because they want to play instrumentalist politics.  This is the way Kwame Nkrumah used to play the chiefs in the old days.  Vote not for me and you will wallow in poverty and stink.  Vote wisely, vote for the CPP and progress will come to your land.  This is what they fear?  I will not argue whether it was a politically motivated scheme by the NDC Government to undermine JJ and his Treason Troupers, I am more concerned with flaunting the laws of the land, which is what we are faced with.  Fortunately the Police stood firm and the ignoble June 4 will be celebrated again this year.  Without the NDC.

I admire former AG Mr. Amidu.  When he was sacked for “disrespecting the President” earlier this year, I commented that the Government had a loose cannon in their backyard.  We need this open truth to safeguard our democracy.  Need I say to Mr. Amidu that there is a Whistle Blowers Act?  I am sure he has that down pat.  However, where is his allegiance to the people of Ghana who have paid his salary and supported his training and education throughout his life?  Where is his commitment to the people of Ghana who painstakingly took all the nonsense through the PNDC days and other sub-standard development while he supported his Jerryship to set us back many decades?  He promises to unleash more facts if the Mills Government “pushes” him.  With due respect Mr. Amidu, Ghana and Ghanaians are far more important if you have the nobility to envelope Freedom and Justice.  None represents our National motto more than the Judiciary and he has been a bastion of solid support for decades.  He cannot wait to be provoked.  Ghana needs resuscitation.

Finally, the IMF are worried about the Ghana economy.  Clearly they did not listen, neither did they read the stories some of us have been publishing and speaking about on radio.  But truth be told, I think they are asking for their pound of flesh.  Early in the year, Government had to make a commitment to remove subsidies, either gradually or in a go.  They (Government) had to do this in order to free up the IMF restriction on conditional borrowing so as to tap into the Chinese $3 billion facility.  The way it is going, it seems Government is not coming through and Shylock has come to demand its flesh.  If Government coalesces and removes the subsidies, it will have to promote other programs very rapidly in order to show some good economic results.  After Bawumia, the shroud of macro economic policy is torn and the IMF has somehow endorsed the opposition interpretation.  We have six months to elections.  Time has run out.

Koku has probably waxed his fullest, Mills is reeling, the economy is tottering and the NDC party is ready to implode.  We have finally arrived at Dr. Lawrence Peter’s level of management incompetence because those occupying positions did not get there because they were competent.

Ghana, aha a ye de papa! alius valde week advenio. Another great week to come!