There will always be tomorrow
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

Nothing can be truer, especially if you consider that there has always been a tomorrow since creation. And there will always be until the end; that is, if you know the exact date.

But the tomorrow talked about by Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani, Chief of Staff and Minister of Presidential Affairs of the past NPP administration, when he appeared before the Ghana@50 Commission last Friday, was one of a different hue.

It was the tomorrow of political inquiry and vindictiveness; a foray into your deeds while in office by a political opponent now in power.

Often, the inquiry has little to do with the merit or demerit of your acts. But according to Mr. Mpiani, it is driven mostly by the sheer force of a national pastime described as the “pull him down (PHD) syndrome;” a curious mentality which is used by malcontents to undermine the successes of the achievers in our society.

While a true inquiry into public acts of malfeasance may be necessary, the practice of making these public has become vindictive, cynical, cyclical, and a perpetual tool for persecution of political enemies.

Apparently Mr. Mpiani's grandmother had been aware of the PHD syndrome at work for years back. When she learned that her grandson Kwadwo was heading for a political career, she cautioned him about "a tomorrow" when your political opponents, for some reasons, would want to look into your past to enable them to demand their pound of flesh.

If Mr. Mpiani didn’t realize the full force of his grandmother's admonition back then, he had the opportunity to do so last Friday, October 23, 2009, when he appeared before the Commission investigating the business activities of the historic March 2007 50th independence celebrations.

That Friday was the "tomorrow" of his grandmother's dread but Kwadwo was ready. His responses to the panel's questions were precise and should help form the basis for a "grandmother's cautionary tale" that ought to be told to all generations.

Looking back over the course of our 50 years of independence, the remarkable thing to observe is how soon Ghanaians forget the political nature of these public inquiries and how often they are meant to target and pillory political opponents.

This type of inquiry has origin in the days following the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah. It provided the opportunity for sycophants, opportunists and genuine political opponents to grandstand, And even now that we can note how biased and overblown some of the charges against Nkrumah were, we still tolerate them.

The public inquiries of the 60s became the template for successive administrations, especially those of the military kind. Thus, what had to be done behind closed doors got done in public to score political points, or justify the illegal seizure of power. The lesson we missed was how negative, futile and dismal these inquiries were for the Ghanaian image.

For the public good, the Ghana@50 commission inquiries should have been held behind closed doors. It is being done in the open for the sake of upholding a party’s manifesto. No wonder the remarkable incivility shown on Friday to Mr. Mpiani by Mrs. Marietta Appiah-Oppong, a member of the Commission.

Mrs Appiah-Oppong had asked Mr. Mpiani about the authorship of the accounts for the Ghana@50 Secretariat to which the latter had answered that it was prepared by the Secretariat.

Not satisfied, Mrs Appiah-Oppong retorted “I know the CEO of the Secretariat holds an MBA degree in Finance, apart from that the other staff members were made up of drivers and national service persons (italics mine) so I want to know whether it was these people who had prepared the account,” as reported by the Daily Graphic.

You cannot help noticing the heavy sarcasm directed at Mr. Mpiani and wonder what caused this incivility towards a former superior public official and for what purpose? Or, was it done to impress a partisan crowd?

On second thought, you notice also the unspoken irony at the expense of Mrs. Appiah-Oppong. She knew details of the qualifications of the CEO of the Secretariat, but, apparently, had not bothered to learn enough about the organization she was investigating - about who the Chief Financial Officer was or the name(s) of the Chief Accountant or the firm that handled accounting for the Secretariat, if any. You could conclude by this single uncivil question her lack of preparation for work at the commission that day.

However, to spare her from further sarcasm, you need not ask what Mrs. Appiah-Oppong did that morning before coming to work!

Then there was the matter of Justice Douse, the Chairman of the Commission's expression of incredulity about the generosity of Dr. Wereko-Brobbey for using his personal fortune of GHC 200,000.00 to kick start the Ghana@50 celebration.

According to the Daily Graphic of Ghana, Mr. Justice Douse said “it baffled him as to how a person, on being appointed to implement a government programme who himself had not been paid, had to use his own money or source for it to do the job.”

Either Mr. Justice Douse’s bafflement was a commendation of a sort for Dr. Wereko-Brobbey’s public spiritedness or an expression of doubt about this CEO’s ability to have raised the GHC 200,000.

Still, regardless of the nature of Mr. Justice Douse’s bafflement, the Secretariat had asked for volunteers and donors to get the event going. There should be nothing wrong with a CEO, charged with the success of the event, setting a good example by putting his own money into the kitty; that is if he had the money. The evidence should easily be verifiable.

While it is good for public officials to be held accountable for decisions they make when in office, such inquiries must always be held behind closed doors. CHRAJ would be investigating the M & J alleged bribery scandal out of the public glare. This legal outfit could have handled the Ghana@50 Secretariat inquiries in the same manner and brought to the courts those found guilty. This way, the political spectacle and drama of these hearings could have been sparred.

Otherwise, the grandmother’s story about there “being always a tomorrow” should serve as a cautionary tale for cohorts of the government of the day.

 
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 26, 2009

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