On that basis, we can go along with Mustapha Hamid (on what we can term an NPP refrain) and say let us “wait” and judge Nana Akufo-Addo by the outcome of his work (at taking the people towards his clear, awesome vision) at the end of say one year, two years or even one term. In the light of where Ghana tripped at, the people of Ghana have no choice but to be patient, (and this is very important) not just wait but help work the vision and see the outcome. Help work the vision, because the vision is not for Nana Akufo-Addo, but for the welfare and progress of the people, Ghana.
Nevertheless, the necessity to help and judge the outcome later does not (and, indeed, should not) take precedence over the more fundamental imperative of prudence and efficiency. The reason is simple: Prudence and efficiency do not necessarily lie with the sheer numbers of appointees, but in having a well-oiled team, no matter how lean, that is efficient and capable at delivering on the declared vision by taking the people along; Jesus, Mohammed (PBUH) and Okomfo Anokye proved that. On that basis, there is a sense in which some of the numbers fit the claim of job for the boys and girls. The only circumstantial difficulty is that no one can go to court to stop it; because of where Ghana tripped at.
Where we tripped at
Listening to the talk for or against the 110 ministers, Ti-Kelenkelen is struck by this – no one appears to be asking why so many are worried about Nana Akufo-Addo appointing so many ministers and yet no one can do anything about it. To re-phrase the fore-going: Many insist the president could have saved Ghana good money with a leaner administration, and while democracy is about checks and balances and the courts are open to enable citizens bring their grievances for redress, why can no one go to court to compel the president to reduce his number of ministers?
Whereas the last section dealt with the particulars of our current circumstances, the fore-going paragraph is directing our attention to the higher demand of the proverb (our Ga Elders taught us): “Ke ote ni ogbee shi le, kaa kwe heni ogbee; kwemo heni ote ye” – If you trip and fall, do not look where you fell, look where you tripped at. Why can Nana Akufo-Addo appoint so many ministers in the first place?
Or to render it a philosophical question: Why can a president appoint so many ministers in the first place without fear of legal backlash? The significance of the philosophical question is that another president could, in future, decide to appoint 200 or 500 ministers, and Ghanaians, who employed that president by voting for him or her, cannot do anything to stop it. In Ti-Kelenkelen’s estimation, that licit possibility, more than the actual appointment of a large number of ministers, is the frightful challenge.
In other words, Ghanaians will have the precise solution if they ask themselves: Where did Ghana trip at? Ghana tripped at where a Constituents Assembly was put together to write the Constitution. Eventually, it appears, the Constitution we voted for in the referendum placed no limit on the number of ministers a president can appoint and placed no limit on the number of Supreme Court judges at any given instance.
Few weeks ago, Ti-Kelenkelen discussed (here) aspects of that challenge. The fundamental problem is that the Constitution appears riddled with sections demanding amendments even when Ghanaians were voting in the referendum to adopt it. And now the ones to initiate amendments to those needless sections are the very ones benefitting most from the Constitution’s short-comings, presidents. In that write-up, Ti-Kelenkelen also shamed lawyers, such as Tsatsu Tsikata, who were close to the making of that document, for they were guided by not what those needless sections portend for Ghana’s future, but by the short-sighted goal of satisfying Rawlings. By throwing Ghana’s interest out of the window, they reaped the eternally inglorious and left Ghana with needless problems.
The Chairman of the Constituents’ Assembly was Pe Rowland Ayaditam. And a more basic question is: What were the leaders of the Constituents’ Assembly thinking when they were including the sections on no-limits-on-appointments? Or was it the case of those sections being slipped into the Constitution after Ghanaians had voted in the referendum to adopt it? During the National Reconciliation Commission hearings (January 2003-June 2004), as Ti-Kelekelen recalls, evidence was brought before it of a section that was slipped in after the referendum. That is the section of the transitional provisions that bar anyone from holding Rawlings and his AFRC and PNDC and their operatives responsible for barbaric, criminal acts they committed in those erstwhile eras.
That a president can appoint the number of ministers he craves and no one can stop him or her is yet another instance of how the ghosts of Rawlings’ dictatorship(s) are still inflicting on Ghana needless nightmares; needless, since they could have been forestalled. They could have been forestalled if the Constituents’ Assembly or the likes of Tsatsu Tsikata had allowed themselves to be guided by principles that inure to the interest of Ghana rather than the goal of turning Rawlings into a constitutional dictator.
Our present circumstance, that the state is relatively cash-strapped, demands that a president be prudent in dispensing public finances, and one way to be prudence is to have a lean national administration. Even if we accept the presumption that there is too-much money available to spend – which presumption we can, for now, hold as the basis on which Nana Akufo-Addo appears to be operating – we still need to realise that too-much money is not the enemy of financial prudence; the same way efficiency is not the enemy of a lean team.
A 21st Century state, such as Ghana, that has mid-20th Century problems in the areas of education, health and development of science and technology should, necessarily, save as much as it can and re-direct the extra funds to needy areas. Such needy areas include eliminating the remaining schools under trees, bringing all deserving plus desirous to school and building modern laboratories-artisanal workshops for schools at all levels to encourage practical work to back up the preponderantly theoretical feature of our education system. That, in addition to other practical steps outlined for realising Nana Akufo-Addo’s vision, will gradually help lead our great state of glorious destiny to that awesome vision.
President Akufo-Addo was right when he observed at the celebration of 60 years of independence at the Black Star Square, Osu in Accra, that Ghana could have been better off today if she had had or maintained better visions and spent more time pursuing those visions. Whereas coup d’états, military regimes and corruption are illegalities that put sand in our gari and sugar in our petrol tanks, making licit, but avoidable public expenses are legalities that reduce the amount of gari we can have and the petrol we can buy into the tank.
While we were discussing this matter, a friend, Nancy, joked that if she were president she will make even DCEs, MuCEs and MeCEs ministers. Already, that would have been 175 ministers. If she decides to add deputies, well… Yet note that she could have done all that, and no one could have done foko or teehh! Why? Simply because of where Ghana tripped at – the bad Constitution Rawlings (and the likes of Tsatsu Tsikata) gave Ghana. What is the best way to uproot this needless but titanic problem? Our Ga Elders have already given us the answer.
“Help work the vision, because the vision is not for Nana Akufo-Addo, but for the welfare and progress of the people, Ghana.”
“Even if we accept the presumption that there is too-much money available to spend… we still need to realise that too-much money is not the enemy of financial prudence; the same way efficiency is not the enemy of a lean team.”
“While we were discussing this matter, a friend, Nancy, joked that if she were president she will make even DCEs, MuCEs and MeCEs ministers… Yet note that she could have done all that, and no one could have done foko or teehh! Why?”
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