DOWN, BUT NOT OUT…

I was going to write about my pleasant encounter at the Tema office of the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority earlier this week but a flurry of depressing news in the country since my visit to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority has finally convinced me to write about something more serious and pressing. The maverick citizen will reflect this week on the work of the Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu Emoluments Committee, set up in 2019 to determine the salaries and privileges of article 71 office holders.

The Ntiamoa-Baidu commission’s recommendation for a formalization of an existing arrangement for spouses of the Presidents and Vice President can only be described as callous and insensitive.

So far, the defense from government has been to shift the blame to parliament for approving the recommendation of the committee. Unfortunately, for a government that rode to power promising to protect the public purse, such justifications are shameful.

It made perfect sense when this informal arrangement was first made in the early 2000s for the state to pay a form of allowance for surviving spouses of former heads of state. The conditions of penury most of these spouses were living in necessitated such an action then.

 But it is unconscionable to extend such a facility to spouses of Presidents and Vice Presidents under this fourth republic. The President and Vice President are adequately catered for by the state under this current dispensation. There is no need to burden the public purse further with this latest recommendation of the Ntiamoa-Baidu committee.

Leadership must be seen as an opportunity to serve the people rather than an avenue for amassing wealth and living comfortably whilst the majority of the citizens wallow in poverty. We risk making the case for democracy in our country unsustainable when we embark on some of these needless expenditures.

There is a whole argument to be had even on the appropriateness of article 71, considering the economic strait we find ourselves in. There can be no argument for the expansion of the scope of article 71. What we need is for a major reform and amendment of article 71. The widespread popular discontent and resentfulness at the political class should provide an opportunity for the executive to once and for all deal with the albatross that article 71 has created.

There can be no justification for the meagre four percent increment in the salary of public sector workers whilst article 71 office holders award themselves all these perks without recourse to the fiscal ability of the state. The state undermines it own authority by causing frustrated young people to disengage from the regulatory ambit of the state and turn to populists to fill the vacuum.

Democracy must deliver for people. It must be the responsibility of leadership to make sure democracy delivers prosperity and equitable distribution of the country’s resources. When leadership failure leads people to doubt the ability of democracy to deliver, they will turn against it.

Similar committees set up in the past were at various points chaired by Prof. Miranda Greenstreet, Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse, Mr Ishmael Yamson, Prof. Marian Ewurama Addy, and Prof. Francisca Edu-Buandoh have all been met with public outrage at various times in the past. It is important therefore for the political authorities to start taking the concerns of the general populace into consideration when approving the emoluments of article 71 office holders.

Going forward, government should take steps to amend article 71 to bring it into the conformity with the broader objective of fairness in the public service pay structure. The idea of asking the citizens to tighten their belts in times of economic crisis whilst giving the impression of living comfortably must be checked in order to safeguard the future of our democracy. The pay differential between public service workers on the single spine salary structure and article 71 office holders is widening and growing after each electoral cycle. Many young people are beginning to believe that hard work will no longer reward them with a chance of decent quality of life.

Meanwhile parliament has approved the $28 million car loan presented by the Finance Ministry to facilitate the purchase of 275 vehicles for members of the eighth Parliament despite public outrage over the issue. The house also approved a sinister report of the Finance Committee that called for the discontinuation of the car loan facility for Members of Parliament and the Council of State.

I have seen a few people jubilate over this second report. I would say, hesitate! What the finance committee is proposing will rather cost the nation more in the long term that it pertains now. The report enjoins subsequent governments to provide official vehicles for Members of Parliament and Council of State members for use as enjoyed by other Article 71 office holders. Under this new arrangement, the state will now be responsible for the purchasing of the vehicles, fueling, maintaining and insuring them. I wonder how this is a better alternative. Wouldn’t this rather cost the nation more?

When a social media activist was killed a couple of weeks ago in Ejura in the Ashanti region of Ghana, a sense of anger tinged with disbelief descended upon the town. When I watched the video recording of the confrontation between the military and the young people who had embarked on a spontaneous relationship, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. At the end of day, my fears were confirmed. Three young people had been killed by the security forces.

Many were left questioning why in God’s holy name this was happening in a supposed democracy headed by a lawyer-President. When at all were we going to move away from our coup past to properly understand the role of the military in a democracy? Perhaps, this time it may be different because the sense of the anger has gotten political traction.

It took less than a week after the Ejura incident then we had another incident of military brutalities against civilians in the Upper West regional capital of Wa. In this incident, the military personnel, mostly junior ranks from 10 Mechanized Battalion Aggrey barracks went on rampage in the town after one of their colleagues reported that his mobile phone was allegedly snatched from him in town.

This has brought to the fore the issue of military-civilian relations. The institutional culture and training in the military under the democratic dispensation needs urgent reforms to come into conformity with the tenets of a modern democracy.

I am quite glad though at the display of urgency by the military command in punishing the culprits identified as taking part in the assault. It is important the President of the nation has formally apologized to the traditional authorities and people of Wa.

However, it must not end there. The President should seize the opportunity presented by these two incidents to reform the way and manner the military is deployed to enforce internal security matters that should ordinarily be handled by the police. If we need to resource the police more in terms of personnel and equipment, then that must be done. What is true of military reform is also true of the police. This could be an area where the President could leave another long-lasting legacy.