Mr. President, please we want to know the fate of Dr. Anane
For the sake of transparency, we can not let this be swept under the rug. More importantly, the supporters of the NPP cannot sit there and let this tarnish our party?s image. I was flabbergasted and disgusted to say the very least, to hear a minister of Ghana (admit,) though indirectly, on radio that he sent $80 000 Dollars to his girlfriend in the United States.
As it may not be my business to ask what that money was meant for, I?m equally interested in finding out the source of that money. The minister?s decision to go on radio to defend his actions, turned out to be a disaster as he could not give any tangible source for that money neither could he defend the accusations of him being a liar by his so called girlfriend for trying to cover up the truth about the money. This woman went on to insult the minister on national radio. The president has said that he is not going to take action on rumors, but he will rather investigate the validity of any rumor before taking action, well in this case Dr. Anane reluctantly admitted to sending the money to the woman, but as we all know he lied many times about the money until the woman admitted over the radio that indeed he sent her that money. Realizing there was no way out, he changed his story to say that he got the money from some ?friends?, yet could not point out these friends. Mr. Pre sident, the evidence is out there that Dr. Anane lied to the Ghanaian public, and has forfeited the trust the Ghanaian people have in him as a public official. He has brought the image of his ministry and the NPP in to disrepute. If it is true that he got this woman pregnant whiles he was on an AIDS conference, then he needs some serious help, to put it mildly.
The NPP has had their hands full this second term, from accusations of mismanaging the economy, corruption, inability to revive the now defunct Ghana Airways, failure to create jobs for the youth, etc, the accusations are just endless. In my view the least the NPP government can do is to create the impression in a meaningful way that the party is different from the NDC, and that it will not condone any gross mistake by any government official. The NPP came to power on the premise that we were going to do things differently. We started out on the right path by prosecuting those who caused massive financial loss to the state, but that was only a fraction of what we need to do because after we set that example we should be setting some high standards for our ministers? to follow. I agree that majority of the ministers in the NPP government are playing it fair and are dedicated to their job, but the few ?black sheeps? need to be uprooted from their positions with the utmost urgen cy because they are causing an irreparable damage to the party and the ramifications are not going to be realized until the 2008 elections and beyond. Maybe we cannot magically alter the plight the country is in, within this short time, because all the things Ghanaians are craving for, and rightly so, are going to take money and more time to accomplish and it is no secret that we don?t have that kind of money, so of course it will take a lot of time and sound policies to even realize part of it. But the least the NPP government can do, is to demonstrate in good faith that it is committed to good governance by rooting out corruption from the top, and I repeat, from the top because we know corruption is rooted in the average Ghanaian to the extent that we?re not going to be able to uproot it within a twinkle of an eye nor by the mere mention of zero tolerance.
Mr. Kufuor should not even give his detractors the chance to tell him to follow the actions of president Obasanjo and president Mbeki who fired his vice president after he was accused of corruption. If he had taken a couple of tough actions, he could have averted those comments. Corruption may be even bigger in Nigeria and South Africa, than it is in Ghana, and we know the single action of firing one person is not going to put an end to it, but that single action if well intended is going to speak volumes, and it will prove to your countrymen that you are at least able and willing to make some hard decisions to achieve that goal. What Dr. Anane did is not any different from what Alhaji Bamba did, it may be even worse, but he was forced to resign. There are a lot of other worthy people in the NPP, and so if one minister disparages his office he should be forced to resign or fired out right after the accusations have been substantiated as in the case of Dr. Anane. It is no big secret that Ghanaians have been over excessively harsh on the Kufuor administration, but it is equally important that the government stops and listen to what all these hoopla is about, because someone may be saying something worth listening to.
There are lot of NPP sympathizers and supporters who are really frustrated with the state of affairs, for the first time I?m beginning to even question why certain actions haven?t been taken yet, and I have always defended the policies of the government in my own small way, every chance I get. I truly believe the people of Ghana will return the NPP to power again in 2008, if they know that they have a government who is genuinely trying to make things better by even changing the way the government operates and instilling respect and trust in the high office, I believe the president is making an effort in this regard, but maybe it is not enough because if blatant mistakes like that of Dr. Anane can go unpunished then it is in fact erasing all the hard work the Kufuor administration is doing in the eyes of most Ghanaians. The actions of Dr. Anane is highly reprehensible and the president?s action against it will go a long way in saving our party in the next elections, but his inaction will tarnish our image and chances of being returned to power.
Mr. president, there are some of us who are in haste to write your name in the good books of Ghana and African politics, but before we do that we plead with you that just as you gave us a good introduction, please follow through by giving us a great body and conclusion so we can be accurate in our positive assessment of your tenure.
CT, USA
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