We haven’t changed one bit
January 9, 2017: Party youth supporters affiliated with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Tamale besieged and locked up the offices of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Youth Employment Agency (YEA) and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and threatened the public officers to vacate their offices because those positions had been earmarked for NPP youth since their party was in power.
December 11, 2025: Alleged supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been implicated in incidents of burning and looting, sparking concerns about public safety and the need for urgent measures to restore order.
400 years
Go back to 400 years ago. A chief in present-day Volta Region of Ghana fell in love with a young maiden.
This maiden, however, was already in love with someone else, a young man with a reputation as the master drummer in the village music group.
The chief knew about the affair between the boy and the girl, but there was very little he could do about it.
His impotent rage threw up an idea. A slave ship had berthed at Keta.
The chief managed to find out when the ship was to set sail.
On the eve of departure, he arranged for the village band to visit the ship ostensibly to perform in a farewell concert for the European crew.
By a secret arrangement with the captain, the ship set sail to the Americas with the town’s band on board – which included the chief’s arch-rival.
(A dirge composed by the townsmen to commemorate this deed is printed in Kofi Awoonor’s influential novel, This Earth My Brother.)
Ghana Airways, State Hotels
Fast forward to 2024.
How many chiefs in today’s Ghana are not doing lucrative batter with political party leaders for personal wealth and political appointments, in return for the votes of their citizens?
Who killed Ghana Airways?
I don’t have all the answers, but I know that by mid-1970s, corruption, like cancer, had eaten so deep that no serious passenger wanted to touch Ghana Airways with a long pole. It was not uncommon for passengers with confirmed tickets to be told at the airport, “Sorry, the flight is fully booked”.
As overbooking threatened the airline’s very existence, the personal wealth of the corporation’s staff shot up.
An Air Force flight Captain, reputed to be a no-nonsense go-getter, was brought in as Managing Director. He lived up to the billing. In 1975, Ghana Airways finally hit upon a rescue plan.
At a press conference, he announced that the corporation had computerised its ticketing system. The MD declared that the era of overbooking was gone forever.
In less than one year, however, Ghana Airways was back in the news. Overbooking had returned! Some clever computer whizz-kid had succeeded in cracking open the secret code, creating access to the computer’s brain.
Ghana Airways flights were being delayed because some big men, mostly politicians and girlfriends were late in reporting. Meanwhile, these privileged passengers (travelling on £1 tickets) had shopped so well in London (the very reason they were late arriving at Heathrow).
Their luggage, capable of filling half of the plane’s cargo hold, was given priority. In the process, many an ordinary passenger’s luggage that had been checked in never arrived at its destination.
In the days of State Hotels, government officials and top management staff were checking girlfriends into rooms which were supposed to earn money for the hotels.
Digitalisation
2023-2025: We are not enjoying the full benefit of the digitalisation programme introduced to cut out corruption and reduce turn-around time for doing business at Passport Office, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Lands Commission because the programme did not take, and has not taken into account the greed of the staff.
Unknown to all of us, the real enemy in the fight to eliminate corruption in these three particular institutions was (are) not the ‘goro boys’; it was (is) the staff.
Young graduates just out of the university desire to buy cars and build (not rent) homes for themselves.
They have worked for 23 years.
The longer the queues, the more desperate the public, and therefore, the crying need for a saviour: goro boys, employed by the staff.
Ordinary workers in state enterprises will tell you how their board chairmen are twisting the hands of CEOs to sell lands to so-called international investors.
The workers’ concern is not so much the principle as the fact that these state prime lands are going for a song.
Percolation Theory sets in. From the politician, board chair, etc., comes the ordinary Ghanaian.
At 9am, a trader sells cassava for GH¢20. An hour later, at 10am, the same item now goes for GH¢50. Ask why? “It’s the dollar,” they’d say.
Our problem, Ghana’s problem, is summed up in James 1:23, 24, “Anyone who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like”.
Ghanaians have just unmasked their worst enemies: ourselves.
The writer is Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com
