On the Run: Double-Salary Thieving NDC MPs Should Give Us a Break!

What I have increasingly found to be quite fascinating about the ardent critics of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is these critics’ flair for statistical frivolities. In the latest of such gratuitous criticism, the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority is virulently accusing the Akufo-Addo Administration of profligately scheming to increase the current number of Presidential Staffers from an already bloated 998 to 1,614 (See “NPP MP Says Government Not Increasing Presidential Staffers to 1,614” CitiNewsRoom.com / Modernghana.com 11/24/18).

The problem here has far less to do with whether, indeed, Jubilee House intends to up the current number of Presidential Staffers by a humongous 616. Rather, it is the woeful inability of the members of the ruling party’s Communication Team Members to swiftly and intelligently rebut such criticism by constructively and meaningfully explaining matters to the general public, especially eligible Ghanaian voters. You see, the first line of logical response is to shut such parliamentary whale-mouths as Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa up by letting it be publicly known that this infamous “baby with sharp teeth,” in the poignant and dead-on-target words of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, was a key player among the cabal of NDC political scam-artists that scandalously gifted Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome some GHȻ 51.2 Million of the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money, and may very well have been a prime beneficiary of this pelf.

Even more significant must be pointed out the fact that at least 66-percent of the 998 Presidential Staffers are career civil and public servants and party stalwarts of the previous NDC regime inherited by the Akufo-Addo Administration, who may not necessarily be on-board with the nonesuch progressive agenda of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, but whose removal may likely cause a firestorm of opposition-party protest against what may be perceived to be “witch-hunting” and other forms of political or ideology-based discrimination. In other words, a full-600-plus of these so-called Presidential Staffers are veritable square pegs in round holes, as it were. What we, therefore, need to be talking about is the deliberate and systematic fleecing of the hardworking and woefully underpaid Ghanaian civil and public servant through such criminal rackets as the Woyome Mega-Heist and the double-salary drawing Mahama cabinet appointees and other executive operatives of the previous National Democratic Congress-sponsored government.

This is where progressive leaders like Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, the Founder-President of the Accra-based IMANI-Africa policy-monitoring think-tank, ought to be focusing their critical spotlight. The lame defense put up by Mr. Andrew Egyapa Mercer, the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Sekondi, in the Western Region, was nothing short of plain embarrassment and actually makes matters worse than they ought to be and may very well be. And it is the fact that he needed to have dialogued with Mr. Kenneth Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, before coming public and presuming to explain off to the nation why the latter cardinal operative of the present administration decided to budget for an increase in the number of Presidential Staffers in the 2019 fiscal year, an abbreviated version of which was read last week before a plenary session of the august House of Parliament.

Needless to say, the latter would be better explained via a comparative analysis of the productivity of the Akufo-Addo Administration vis-à-vis the previous Mahama regime. You see, playing lightly or fast-and-loose with these figures, as Egyapa Mercer seems to be doing, may very well come back to haunt the President and his appointees in the leadup to the 2020 Presidential Election, unless, of course, Nana Akufo-Addo and Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia could effectively and objectively justify such inescapably disturbing exponential augmentation of the Presidential Staff. One explanation, for example, could be the quite reasonable fact that Presidential Staffers are not just resident or located in Accra. Rather, a remarkable percentage of these Presidential Staffers are spread out over all the 10 regional capitals of the country, as well as the 375 Constituencies and/or District Assemblies across the country.

Lamely telling the public that the budgetary-add-on or increase for some 616 proposed new Presidential Staff hiring may not necessarily be met, or that such money as earmarked for such new hires may not actually be used or tapped into, exposes the Finance Minister and the New Patriotic Party’s Economic Management Team (EMT) to ridicule. It actually allows the forensically proven real thieves of the National Democratic Congress to literally get away with murder. This is where the Office of the Independent Special Public Prosecutor needs to be promptly and fully resourced, activated and be fully fitted with shark-sharp teeth to enable it to bite with condign vengeance.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York
November 24, 2018
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net