Trouble is brewing at Ghana’s only and last bastion of state-sponsored public transportation, the Metro Mass Transit Limited. Credible reports reaching this writer indicate that a plot currently underway, is vigorously being ramped up to ouster the current Managing Director Mr. John Noble Appiah.

Painstaking investigations reveal that for the past 3 weeks to a month, the Managing Director has been somewhat “missing in action”, due to an arbitrary and unilateral order by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nana Osabarima Ansah Sasraku III, asking the Managing Director to proceed on leave, declaring a virtual “coup d’état” at Metro Mass. This revelation comes on the heals of an equally disturbing allegation that the Deputy Managing Director, Mr. John Awuku Dzuazah, is at the centre of the scheme to engineer the ouster of Mr. John Appiah, so that he, Mr. Dzuazah can assume Mr. Appiah’s post. Repeated phone calls to Metro Mass Limited, trying to reach Mr. Appiah for his comments proved futile.

However, a number of Metro Mass senior managers in a position to know the internal happenings of the organization, and speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed shock at the sudden and unilateral high-handedness of the Board Chairman, who is a non-executive chairman of a generally advisory body. The allegations however appear to run deeper than the Board’s functions, even beyond a mere power grab, and directly link the Board Chairman’s quest for procurement contracts at Metro Mass with the attempted ouster of the Managing Director. The highly irregular actions of the Board Chairman raise a number of important questions. For example, who owns Messrs. Allied Home Stores Limited and what is the nature of the relationship between the Board Chairman and this company, since this company seems to be at the centre of some of the procurement “storms” brewing at Metro Mass? This writer is making further investigations to confirm or debunk these allegations, but if they are true, they raise a fundamental question about whether a Board Chairman, appointed by the President, in the same way that he appoints heads of public corporations, can suddenly convert his largely advisory role into executive powers capable of literally initiating the summary dismissal of the head of a public corporation appointed by the President of the Republic of Ghana.

The strong probability that the Board, through its Chairman, has suddenly morphed into a procurement unit at Metro Mass is a disturbing development which immediately puts taxpayers’ resources at risk. The notion that a Board Chairman, and a traditional ruler too, can sit on a Board, channeling contracts to himself and his cronies, while intimidating those he believes to be in his way, is contrary to the primary functions of any Board anywhere, and denigrates the almost routine dignities and respects accorded several traditional rulers serving honestly and diligently on various boards in this country. Nana Osabarima Ansah Sasraku III seems hell bent on bringing that otherwise sterling reputation into grave disrepute, which is why President John Dramani Mahama must take a closer look at Metro Mass Transit Limited.

Employees generally agreed that Mr. John Appiah is the right person for the job and that upon his assumption of office, about 100 buses which were off the road, were rehabilitated and made motorable, directly as a result of Mr. Appiah’s hands-on and all-inclusive but humble management style. In addition, they said he had made important decisions aimed at making Metro Mass profitable and self-sustaining, which appear to have “offended” others who intend to pillage the already strained resources of an already struggling public institution.

Unfortunately, his hard work and that of the employees it appears, are currently in jeopardy, as employees perceived to be in support of Mr. Appiah’s management of Metro Mass are also summarily being transferred from Accra without explanation, in the merely three weeks of Mr. Appiah’s absence. An atmosphere of outright intimidation and coercion now dominates Metro Mass as I write. The transfers are said to be orchestrated by the Deputy Managing Director in cahoots with the Board Chairman. Mr. Dzuazah is said to be aggrieved that Mr. Appiah was appointed to the top position instead of him, contrary to an original promise to him by his “political patrons”. If this is true, it will be the first time someone in a public corporation is making a claim openly for a top job, not because of his superior competence, qualifications and experience, but merely because of his political connections.

The summary transfers appear to be part of a diabolical plan to isolate Mr. Appiah or since he is said to be returning to post, to intimidate other senior officers with crucial evidence of others’ involvement in the illegal attempt to remove Mr. Appiah, to refrain from providing that information to a Committee of Enquiry being vigorously demanded by those who suspect foul play against Mr. Appiah. The Board Chairman is said to be in cahoots with the state of arbitrariness and fear that now pervades Metro Mass Transit Ltd; and it is time for President John Mahama to act decisively on this matter.

Ghanaians are encouraged by recent revelations at the National Service Scheme, on the orders of President Mahama and hope that he can extend that leadership and forthrightness to other public corporations in Ghana. Metro Mass Transit Limited offers, to put it badly, a wonderful opportunity to continue sending a very strong message to those appointed to high public office, that this Government and its President will serve the people of Ghana honestly every day, looking out for the public interest and bringing crooks, even if they are prominent people in society, to book, if such persons pursue their own corrupt and parochial interests.

Attempts to reach Mr. Duazah for his side of the story were unanswered. This writer will continue to make efforts to reach him for his comments, but the idea that cronyism is operating deeply within public corporations in Ghana is a disturbing low point. This is the behaviour that has negatively branded our country as corrupt – a situation in which people who come to a position because of the political fortunes of a party, use their new-found power to prosecute and persecute so-called “enemies” by either engineering their demotion, isolation or outright removal from office, forgetting that as the political winds change, someone else with a grievance due to similar treatment, will also be seeking revenge; for no one holds a political office or politically engineered office indefinitely; one fine day, that tenure comes to an end, and then what next?

I recall years ago in the PNDC era, when a certain Under-Secretary of Employment and Social Welfare, was so arrogant and vindictive, that a few years down the line when he lost his job, he found himself having to loiter at the same Ministry to read outdated newspapers, and became a laughing stock of the very people whose careers he tried to destroy. Nana Osabarima Ansah Sasraku III and John Dzuazah must know that orchestrating the ouster of a properly appointed head of a public corporation, and a visible one at that, cannot be done without attracting attention and the indignation of discerning Ghanaians.

However, information received indicates that attempts are already being made by the Deputy Managing Director to cover up his involvement with these maneuvers, by dissociating himself from the past three weeks’ events, leaving the Chairman of the Board in the cold. Persons close to the unfolding drama, allege that Mr. Dzuazah has made several frantic efforts to deny his involvement in the scheme, following the impending return of the substantive Managing Director Mr. John Appiah to post. It is an age-old maneuver of a conspiracy gone wrong, when on the verge of discovery, conspirators often recant their involvement in dastardly schemes. The question is which of the two – Nana Osabarima Ansah Sasraku III or Mr. John Dzuazah, – will be the first to fall on his own sword? Perhaps even both will. Investigations continue.

Francis Dery

Email: deryfrancis@yahoo.com