Dear President John Dramani Mahama,
Were I to write a book on my investigative journalism career, I would dedicate a chapter to the role you have played in the success of that story.
I began my full-time career after winning the GJA Journalist of the Year award in 2011, a year after graduating from journalism school. But, even then, I wasn’t an investigative journalist. During the studies for my first and second journalism degrees, I did not take a class in investigative journalism. In fact, investigative journalism was not part of the dreams I wanted to pursue after school.
It started in 2013, three months after I joined Joy FM, and a month after you were sworn into office. A man who said he could vouch for my integrity gave me a lead on an act of corruption at the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA).
I set out to ascertain the truth or otherwise of the allegation, and it became my first investigative story.
Mr. President, you constituted a committee to probe further, and the committee’s work corroborated my story and revealed even more. Two people went to jail as a result of the GYEEDA scandal. The Parliament of Ghana passed a law to regulate GYEEDA, which was subsequently renamed the Youth Employment Agency (YEA). That bill was initiated by the executive, on your orders.
All the GYEEDA contracts were cancelled except one. The cancellations saved Ghana at least $100 million. Monies were retrieved, and some corrupt officials lost their jobs.
The only contract that survived my GYEEDA investigations in 2013 is the Zoomlion contract, which you said would not be renewed. That obscene contract was signed in 2006 and will mark its 20th anniversary next year.
Those who have followed my work over the years need no reminder of how deeply invested I have been in that shady contract, which has cost Ghana billions of cedis but has left the nation poorer and filthier. I spoke to a 49-year-old widow while investigating the story in 2013, and the anger about the heartlessness of that contract has stayed with me forever.
That unconscionable Zoomlion contract with its dubious terms started during President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration and has since survived every presidency.
Your decision to discontinue this contract has reinforced my long-held faith in not giving up on a just and noble cause, even if nobody else believes in it. It’s been 12 years fighting, and your action is the most appropriate response to those who asked why I would not give up and move on, when nobody was prepared to discontinue the contract.
After the GYEEDA investigation, my family advised me against pursuing investigative journalism. As they said, it was too dangerous, especially considering the calibre of people and businesses I pursued without covering my face.
But the impact of my first story was enough proof that I could cause change in my own way, and that anchored me in the turbulent seas of investigative journalism. Mr. President, you spearheaded the impact, even though I felt you could have punished more culprits in the GYEEDA scandal.
Another significant way you aided my investigative journalism career was by providing me with the freedom and security to do my work, even when some of the stories directly affected you.
If the insecurity, treachery, and vindictiveness I endured in the Akufo-Addo era had hit me at the beginning of my investigative journalism, before I developed the resilience needed to endure, I might have succumbed to my family’s pressure and left the dangerous arena.
Your latest action on this dubious Zoomlion contract is the kind of fuel investigative journalists and activists need to keep fighting. I’ve reached the stage in my journalism career where awards and recognition no longer matter as much as they once did. And if I wanted money, looking the other way would have been more rewarding than hunting shady enterprises with enough ill-gotten money to seal the lips of their pursuers with millions of dollars without feeling the pinch.
What moves me is impact, and impact does not always emanate from the journalist. Journalists don’t have the power to prosecute or punish. Besides providing an atmosphere for free speech, a president who acts on investigations also oils the wheels of accountability journalism. And that’s what you’ve done for me, while inspiring others.
Mr. President, we cannot agree on everything, and I cannot promise that I won’t criticise your government, but you have relieved me of one of my heaviest burdens. It may be too early yet, but you have so far proven me right on my statement in Bola Ray’s interview last year that “comparing Akufo-Addo and John Mahama is like comparing day and night.”
I sent this same issue to the bedroom of President Akufo-Addo, but he didn’t even acknowledge it. (It constitutes the chapter in my book titled “Why I met Akufo-Addo’s Wife with A Brown Envelope.”)
In my book, The President Ghana Never Got, I wrote a chapter titled “Why I Will Not Vote,” and my reason for not voting was because of that singular contract. I didn’t see the essence of a democracy that elects a few people to connive with corrupt entities to treat our people like animals. I once told someone that I hated coups, but if a coup maker would terminate that Zoomlion contract, I wouldn’t object to the usurper’s ascendency to political power. That’s how strongly I felt about this deal.
In a significant way, you have restored my faith in our democracy. If a civilian president could be relied on to act in the interest of the people, then Ghanaians would lose the appetite for populist military rulers and stop drooling over the antics of the young man across our northern border.
I will keep a keen eye on the promises you made in your letter. I will follow up and ask for timelines, when the assemblies will take over and manage the sweepers. The process of resetting the sanitation sector has just begun, and I will keep my part of the bargain as a citizen, not a spectator, especially now that being a citizen appears a worthwhile enterprise under your watch.
While I celebrate your boldness in taking this decision, I want to remind you about the promise you made on the scandalous SML contract. You said the NDC would not recognise the dubious contract. You are in your sixth month, but the contract is still running.
I will continue to play my role as a journalist and help your administration in bringing justice to Ghanaians. I will volunteer information, including evidence, that your administration may require to retrieve money from the YEA contract with Zoomlion and the fraudulent fumigation deals, as well as SML.
Many impressed sceptics of your administration I encounter these days ask whether what they’re seeing in your presidency is what the second coming of Mahama really brings, or if it will be a nine-day wonder.
Like them, I’m impressed, but I cannot assure them that what we are seeing won’t be a short-lived fairy tale. That assurance can only come from you. I pray that you succeed, for if you do, Ghana prospers.
I wish you well, Mr. President.
Yours sincerely,
Manasseh Azure Awuni.
