John Mahama and the python eaters of SADAland

Written by Manasseh Azure Awuni, April 2014

The faces in the hall at Christ the King Parish were happy ones. It was a Sunday afternoon. The worshipers had left but another group of people plagued by a common background of poverty had gathered in one of the halls at the parish. They were members of the Northern Development Forum (NDF). Their happiness was because the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) bill had been passed into law to speed up development in the three regions of the North, the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

The NDF was birthed in the wake of the 2007 floods, which ravaged the northern part of the country. The forum helped to raise and coordinate relief items for victims of the flood. The forum and its members lingered on after the floods had subsided, and with subtle pressure, got the John Agyekum Kufuor administration to start the Northern Development Fund, which, once it came into office, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) predictably had to rechristen. The battle over the original ownership of the idea raged between the NDC and NPP in the 2008 elections campaign.

But on this day, it wasn’t about who would take credit. President John Evans Atta-Mills’ NDC administration had announced the formation of SADA and on July 30,2010, parliament passed the SADA bill into law. This was why there was celebration at NDF. Part of that Sunday’s agenda was to write a letter of appreciation to the president. I remember at that meeting some individuals who had worked hard to see this happen were appreciated. The boy from Bongo who had written a number of news commentaries on the subject of Northern development for GBC’s radio also received a modest pat on the shoulder.

That feeling of hope and great expectation gave way to despair and anger as I traveled from one community to the other, visiting SADA project sites, seeing with my eyes, what had been done with hard-earned cash of a starving nation and absorbing the harrowing stories of persons who were supposed to be beneficiaries of the noble SADA initiative.

I was very much aware of the concerns that some had expressed that the reports I had written for Joy FM would weaken donor confidence in SADA and consequently hasten its imminent death. What such critics don’t remember is that before those reports were published, SADA did not make it to the national budget for the 2014 financial year. Before the Joy FM investigations, the President had forgotten to mention this very important intervention in his State of the Nation Address. Many of us suspected that all was not well with the ailing SADA and the Joy FM reports provided the evidence to support the suspicion.

In the midst of all this, I have been waiting for the reaction of one man. President John Dramani Mahama has not said a word about SADA. He has not taken any action on SADA. And yet, whether SADA will die or live to tell the happy SADA story we are yearning to hear, depends on him.

He can choose to ignore SADA the way he has done so far and the authority will die a natural death. He can also decide to clean up the authority by ensuring that every stolen or misused cedi is accounted for. He can then put the right people in charge and task them to rebrand the authority, not with words but with action. SADA’s problem is not about the policy. SADA’s problem is not with the lack of experts to manage it. SADA’s problem is the indescribable greed of its managers. When we prise away the greedy hands from the bowl of porridge meant for the poor, the starving masses can get a sip.

Unfortunately, President Mahama’s reaction to such scandals is more painful than listening to Gilbert Seidu Iddi tell you why the SADA afforestation and mango projects are success stories: “We recruited farmers. We planted trees. We created jobs.” And he really should have finished off his oration with “and we watched the seedlings we planted in the dry season, wither away….” But he didn’t, he was focused on the success stories.

It is over a year since the scandal that collapsed the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) broke. As we speak, the officials who opened illegal bank accounts and siphoned state money into those accounts are still at post. Even though some of them have confessed to the crime and stated how they shared the proceeds they have not been interdicted. Many months after two men, Abuga Pele, the Member of Parliament for Chiana Paga Constituency, who was the National Coordinator at GYEEDA and Phillip Akpeena Assibit, who provided questionable consultancy services for GYEEDA, were charged, Ghanaians are still wondering if any of these other people will also be charged.

The ministers who signed those outrageous contracts are still in office. The major service providers have only been asked to refund money and only God can tell whether and how they are complying. It’s almost a year since the GYEEDA report revealed that a certain Director of Finance at GYEEDA had confessed he could not prepare a financial statement. About One Billion Ghana Cedis or more had passed through that agency during his tenure. He is still at post.

Meanwhile the President is talking about reforms at GYEEDA. Is this not what Lawyer Egbert Faible Jnr calls spreading mayonnaise on cow dung?

In South Korea, a private ferry drowns and the Prime Minister takes responsibility, and resigns. Under President Mahama, no one takes responsibility and no one resigns for any wrongdoing. And no one is punished. We all said his predecessor was weak but under him, at least a certain sports minister was forced to step aside when the “chichinga” scandal broke. Remember Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak? Under President Mills, three ministers of state were forced to resign when the details came to light of the Mabey and Johnson bribery scandal, which had occurred over a decade ago. Under President Mills, Betty Mould Iddrisu, then the Minister of Education was made to resign following her involvement in the Woyome Scandal, while she was Attorney General.

But the money Clement Kofi Humado, the Minister responsible for GYEEDA had caused the state to lose through the Better Ghana Management Service contract with GYEEDA alone is more than four times what was paid to Woyome. He is still a cabinet minister a year after the scandal broke.

Our wise elders say a chief who does not punish evil, commands it to be done. It is therefore not strange that Kobby Acheampong, who was chosen to act and lead reforms at GYEEDA, decided to advertise the Youth in ICT module without authorization at the time all modules had been frozen. If government’s explanation that it didn’t know about the ads until Joy FM took up the issue is anything to go by, one can assume that the president’s inaction is proving our elders right.

I have never met President Mahama in person apart from our brief encounter at the 2012 Youth Achievers Awards where I walked up to him and handed him a copy of his book for an autograph. “Bravo, young man. Keep up the good work!” he wrote before signing. I can’t imagine what he would tell me today, but if I ever meet him, my advice to him would be very simple:

Mr. President, much of the nation’s woes is because of you. We accuse the finance minister and authorities of the Central Bank of problems they are not responsible for. The state is practising money laundering in the way it doles out money to few undeserving people and companies. Host of Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, calls them polipreneurs.

Mr. President, have you realised that the money you borrow or collect from the tax payer does not get to the intended beneficiaries because of corruption? It is true that corruption started from Adam, as President Kufuor would glorify it, but in your time, the corruption we are witnessing is wearing a five-piece suit and a cowboy’s hat to match.
Mr. President have you realised that every scandal that breaks up in recent times has something to do with companies, belonging to Roland Agambire and Joseph Siaw Agyapong? Remember GYEEDA? SUBAH? And almighty SADA? The GYEEDA report says contracts were skewed in favour of their companies. Will you look into their operations as some people have suggested?

Mr. President, you recently told a story about your journey to Switzerland to illustrate a point. Permit me to also tell a tale about my experience in Mandela land. One Sunday morning in September 2012, I was driven from Sandton City to the central business district of Johannesburg so I could be closer to The Star newspaper, where I was to do my internship. The driver of the sleek and sexy Benz suddenly slowed down when there was no traffic. When I asked why, he said there were speed cameras around.

“They will bring me a fine if I go beyond the speed limit. I will lose my license if I don’t pay. I can even lose my job,” he told me.

Mr. President, please the constitution has given you more powers than the speed cameras on the highways of Johannesburg. I know you are interested in running again in the 2016 elections. And you are reported to have said that Ghanaians have short memory. You are probably very right on that one.

When the mass of sweaty bodies huddle together in a dusty field somewhere in Gyeedaland or Sadaland; when a certain handsome and “youthful” presidential hopeful arrives at a campaign ground with a ten-kilometer convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers; when the ear-shuttering public address systems blare and set the place ablaze with the magical rhythm that precedes Jewel Ackah’s ‘Arise, arise for Ghana, all patriots of the land,’; when a certain John Dramani Mahama mounts the platform and declares to the sea of party faithful: ‘It is still E dey beee kεkε’ and the crowd goes crazy, nobody will remember GYEEDA. They will not remember SADA or SUBAH. They will not remember the many corruption scandals your inactions may produce in the future.
But if there is anything the 2008 elections have taught us, then it is the fact that the Ghanaian voter cannot be taken for granted.

Mr. President, sometimes I fear for the security of this nation when you seem unconcerned about our woes. Why am I saying this? Many centuries ago, a certain president said: “If the Arab Spring has taught us anything, it is that, it is no longer acceptable to be ambivalent about the needs of the poor and marginalized in our societies…”

Mr. President, if you thought this profound quote was coming from an opposition element with the aim of causing fear and panic, then you are wrong. It is coming from a certain John Dramani Mahama. You actually wrote this on your official Facebook page on April 8, 2014 at exactly 15:23 GMT. I only hope you understood what you wrote.

Finally Mr. President, let me leave you with this proverb from our Akan sages of old: “The man who sits at home and watches children eat python will not be left out if the roll call of python eaters is conducted.”

No evidence may have been produced that links you directly to the numerous corruption scandals that have rocked and continue to rock our republic though some of the culprits are your friends. But when we look back one day, people are bound to say there was great incentive for corruption in Ghana when the fourth successive John ruled as Ghana’s Fourth president in the Fourth Republic.

That John will be you. And that incentive is your inaction.