By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Jan. 13, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

When they forced him off the so-called Ho Economic-Restructuring Initiative - or some such program - I wrote to roundly condemn what I then promptly envisaged to be a dastardly attempt by some Mahama appointees and party apparatchiks to doggedly pursue the rankly corrupt status quo which the otherwise quite refreshing Ho Initiative was supposedly aimed at reconfiguring, particularly with reference to the bloated and wasteful payroll irregularities of public employees and the civil service system as a whole.

The Founding-President of the IMANI-Ghana think tank had conducted his own cursory survey of the system and foresightedly concluded that a remarkable amount of money, over the long haul, could be saved the overburdened Ghanaian taxpayer. Alas, one or two close associates of President John Dramani Mahama had other plans; they, obviously, thought that pruning the public payroll and cutting out huge chunks of otiose bureaucratic blubber would not serve the long-term political ambitions of Mr. Mahama. And I also have a strong feeling that one such cynical National Democratic Congress (NDC) operative was the insufferably hawkish and grubby Mr. Eric Ametor Quarmyne.

Back then, I even wrote a column passionately appealing to the President to pursuade Mr. Cudjoe to return to the payroll restructuring committee or commission, or whatever the initiative was called back then. Mr. Cudjoe had publicly and bitterly complained that there were a handful of very powerful party stalwarts and cabinet operatives from the Finance Ministry and the Controller and Accountant-General's Department who were hell-bent on thwarting the otherwise well-meaning and even progressive attempt to reduce public financial hemorrhage to the barest minimum. One of the party apparatchiks would vehemently protest any constructive attempt to have the IMANI-Ghana leader return to his specially appointed public-service post.

We had also suspected something fishy, but now it is incontrovertibly clear why the party machine operatives would rather have the head of Franklin John-The-Baptist Cudjoe re-carved and re-delivered to the Herodiases of the Mahama-chaperoned National Democratic Congress on a petroleum platter. Just the other day, the no-punches-pulling Mr. Cudjoe came public with the statement that he was in possession of "intercepted" reliable information pointing to the fact of some public employees being paid double salaries for performing the jobs of only single individuals.

Now, I can perfectly understand why intellectually bankrupt perennial cabinet fixtures like Mr. Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey fanatically believe that the Mahama Presidency has witnessed the greatest hailstones of manna-rain on the pates of non-wheelchair-bound Ghanaians since the days of Moses, the legendary Biblical patriarch of the ancient Isrealites and the Islamo-Judeo-Christian religions (See "Gov't Workers On 'Leave Without Pay' Still Getting Paid - IMANI Boss Alleges" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/12/15).

The IMANI-Ghana Chief, ever the bold and fearless critic of the generally corrupt Ghanaian establishment, did not waste any moment or time in naming the source of his insider information. But, of course, this was not until the vacuously imperious Presidential Staffer, Dr. Clement Apaak, had issued what the latter claimed to be a call to the bluff of the IMANI-Ghana maven. This time around, however, a visibly alarmed Dr. Apaak was uncharacteristically polite and even diplomatic with his dare; he had even pretended as if the Mahama regime was genuinely and sincerely on the lookout for progressive leads that might considerably help in quelling the abominably rising tide of corruption in the country.

The unpleasant fact of the matter, though, is that President Mahama has been in the know all along, if also because the payroll auditor's information which Mr. Cudjoe claimed to have "intercepted," or at least a vital portion of the same, had been conducted by a reputable international bean-counter expressly brought in by the government for the afore-stated purpose. Now, all that is left for Dr. Apaak to do is to redeem his name and his integrity by either denying or confirming the latest revelation made by the IMANI-Ghana leader.

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