The 8yrs of Nana Akuffo Addo and Dr. Bawumia government was so horrific and catastrophic. Their Leadership lacked “Virtue” the last “Remnant of Democracy was missing in their 8yrs stewardship. They subjected the Ghanaian people to economic hardship, social repression and most of all institutionalized corruption.According to Montesquieu, when “Virtue” disappears in governance, democracy ceases to function because Virtue is the last Remnant of Democratic development of any Sovereign state. Therefore, he attests that “Political virtue” lays the bedrock of moral virtue and political fabrique since it requires “a continuous preference of the public interest over one’s own parochial interest,” and this produces all the individual virtues, which “are only that preference” (SL 4.5) meaning it is the right and abundant duty for any government to uphold the principle of political virtue in the discharge of its political mandate. This virtue encompasses the democratic principles of probity, accountability and social justice. These principles were missing in the last years Nana Akuffo Addo and Dr. Bawumia government which according to corruption perception index is the most corrupt government in the history of Ghana’s democratic development.
Against this backdrop and otherwise, the continuous preference of public interest was overshadowed by parochial interest of the appointees of the past NPP government as they created wealth for themselves by looting the state and sharing the proceeds amongst themselves in the face of economic hardships they subjected Ghanaians to and at the time when most Ghanaians cannot afford 1square meal a day and at the time when about 24.7% of the Ghanaian population went a day without food according to Global info analytics Data, 2024. So, entirely, the NPP government threw the economy into an abyss. So, the fight against institutionalized corruption was a campaign message of the NDC to recovers all the loot amassed by the corrupt officials of the NPP government dubbed ORAL [Operation Recover All Loot]. This approach resonated well with Ghanaian electorates and they demonstrated their support for the fight against institutionalized corruption which had then crippled the Nana Akuffo Addo and Dr. Bawumia government which manifested in outcome of the December, 7 2024 elections. Hence, President John Mahama desire to fight corruption would not be complete and it will be defeatist if the NDC government fails to prosecute the corrupt appointees of the Nana Akuffo Addo and Dr, Bawumia government. This is because the victory and success of the NDC is tied to the ORAL it promised Ghanaians upon which Ghanaians voted for change. Thus, the expectations of Ghanaians are very high when it comes to the fight against institutionalized corruption. It has culminated into a non-negotiable mantra and fast forwards, the victory of the NDC in the next general elections in 2028 would depend on how best the NDC government fast track criminal proceedings against all persons involved in looting the state to either get them incarcerated or recovering the all the loot.
The NPP government over the years was fraught with many scandals. The PDS SCANDAL where an amount of over GHC 600M was collected and could not be accounted for, President Akuffo Addo’s daughter’s ambulance spare parts SCANDAL involving $34m, the $2m sky train SCANDAL, The Pwualugu Dam SCANDAL involving $12m, The Signal Bureau SCANDAL involving Kwabena Adu Boahene, the former Director General of the signal bureau in a GHC 48m scandal, Agyapa deal involving $15m, the National Cathedral SCANDAL involving 58 million dollars now $97m for useless but expensive hole on earth. The recent Audit report on the Cathedral is scarier to witness that the total expenditure on the manhole has interestingly shot up to $97m. This gives reasons for the government to expedite action to fast track the prosecution of all those who are involved in this scandal asap.
Further, The stinking SML SCANDAL, National Petroleum Authority Scandal involving Mustapha Hamid, the former DG and his cartel, the National Service Secretariat payroll scandal, Australia Visa scandal, Ghana High commission in Oslo SCANDAL, the Galamsey Scandal exposed by Prof. Frimpong Boateng, the Former Minister of Environment, science and Technology Report which indicted the President and the Vice-President as being part of a cartel involved in Galamsey activities including Chairman Wuntumi who is under EOCO investigations, the 500 missing excavators’ SCANDAL, Misappropriation of Covid-19 Funds SCANDAL, The BOST Scandal, the Sputnik vaccine SCANDAL, the Ministry of Education Maths set SCANDAL involving the running mate of Dr. Bawumia, NAPO, over GHC68M scandal which was used to print past questions for SHS students, Cecilia Dapaah cash under bed SCANDAL involving millions of dollars and many more scandals exposed in the Auditor-General’s Report, the discrepancies in the cost of Bank of Ghana New Office complex Scandal involving $250m, the Achimota Forest and PPA scandals and other scandals are all under the watch lenses of the eye of every Ghanaian wanting the NDC Government to probe this scandals to its logical conclusion. To wit, Virtue is an ethical theory that encompasses a particular understanding of political practice [sciencedirect.com] It involves the willingness by individuals to find the good life together in an “association oriented” toward the common good. This common project is vulnerable; it is prone to being undermined by a set of factors mentioned above [Corrupt government of the NPP]. So, Political Virtue is behaviour of political leadership showing high moral standards to serve the people and never to oppress them as we witnessed in Ghana under the NPP government. In a functioning democracy, the people are sovereign [but under NPP only the political elite were sovereign]. The principle of democracy remains political virtue, its remnant by which Montesquieu means “the love of the laws and of our country” (SL 4.5), including its democratic constitution. Baron accordingly argued in the Spirit of the Laws that “The form of a democratic government that is grounded on rule of law and natural justice, building strong state institution is to administer governance devoid of political interference with respect to the independence of these institutions to discharge their mandates without fear or favour. The need to protect its principle, however, imposes far more extensive requirements. On Montesquieu view, the virtue required by a functioning democracy is not natural. It requires “a constant preference of public to private interest” (SL 4.5), serving the people and not oppressing them; Virtue “limits ambition to the sole desire, to the sole happiness, of doing greater services to our country than the rest of our fellow citizens” (SL 5.3); and it “is a self-renunciation, which is ever arduous and painful” (SL 4.5).
Further, Baron argues that, Democracies can be corrupted in two ways: by what Montesquieu calls “the spirit of inequality” and “the spirit of extreme equality” (SL 8.2). The spirit of inequality arises when citizens no longer identify their interests with the interests of their country [When few citizens takes decision for the Country against the Larger interest of the Country] and therefore seek both to advance their own private interests at the expense of their fellow citizens, and to acquire political power over them [Oppression]. The NPP government by extension have demonstrated by its 8 year stewardship that it never seeks to advance the interest of the state. They were corrupted by spirit of inequality that they no longer seek the interest of citizens but their own parochial interest resulting in an unbridled corruption within state officials and institutions. The spirit of extreme equality arises when the people are no longer content to be equal as citizens, but want to be equal in every respect. So, the NPP government subjected Ghanaians to economic hardship, social repression and institutionalized corruption by means of extreme equality where they no longer cared about the citizens but themselves thereby creating a loot and share schemes and criminal enterprises to reap the state of what it deserves. This happened at the time when Ghanaians were suffering from existential hardships. They see no reason why Ghanaians should benefit from the national the cake except themselves thereby going to the extreme enriching themselves through corrupt practices.
So to conclude, it is imperative to note that not until the NDC government prosecute all these cases to the later, ORAL would be defeatist. The core mission to fight institutionalized corruption will disappear and Ghanaians will see the NDC government in a bad light. So, in order not for Ghanaians to see the NDC in a bad light, the government have to fast track the prosecutions that are before the Judiciary. The Constitutional review project must see to it that, the bottle necks and bureaucracies surrounding judiciary jurisprudence in handling political cases especially corruption related prosecutions are removed to fast track cases through Accountability Courts established to handle such cases to punish these corrupt public official as early possible for the comfort and relief of Ghanaians who have trust in President JM in fighting corruption and who in the shortest possible time seems to be fighting corruption and reducing profligate expenditure by the executive to ensure fiscal discipline. But more needs to be done to accomplish the core mission of the ORAL project. Stakes are high for The Attorney General, Special Prosecutor, EOCO and other state institutions mandated to prosecute these corrupt cases to do so in the spirit of the laws that establishes these institutions without fear or favour in support of the president quest to fight institutionalized corruption. As it stands now Ken Ofori Atta, the former Minister of Finance who is wanted for corruption related cases remains a fugitive and Ghanaians are looking forward for his extradition to face these charges. It is a must.
DR. MICHAEL RICHMOND SMART-ABBEY [POLITICAL & PUBLIC POLICY ANALYST, GOVERNANCE AND SECURITY EXPERT, WRITER & AUTHOR,
COLUMNIST: MODERN GHANA NEWS WEBSITE, EVENING TRIBUNE NEWS PAPER, INTERNATIONAL REPORTER, ICATV NEWS-FRANCOPHONE MEDIA WEB. [email protected] 0504272091
