SPEAKER OF GHANA’S PARLIAMENT CAUGHT PANTS DOWN

Mr. Speaker, Come Clean…Standardization of recruitment processes…Room for review of processes

For those who need a proof, here we go… The Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, the third most powerful citizen, Ebenezer Sekyi Hughes, is in hot waters for what would have passed as a time-honored incident and, for that matter, uneventful. It is not strange in Ghana, where unemployment has skyrocketed to very alarming proportions in recent years, to see those trusted with the responsibility of ‘rulership’ and other people of note to try to manipulate the system in favour of their cronies, family members, tribesmen and political associates.

This unscrupulous act, variously referred to, in Ghanaian parlance, as ‘whom you know, who knows you, networking or the spider’s web syndrome, has gained so much currency in recent days that competent job applicants without the right links are dropped with far-fetched excuses. It is exactly what the speaker of parliament, (dis) honourable Ebenezer Sekyi Hughes, has tried to do but touched the wrong nerves unfortunately. ‘You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time’. Paradoxically, one of the affected persons, Mrs. Rose Keddey, who is alleged to be throwing a challenge to the speaker to come clean for what she perceived as manipulation of the system to favour the former Executive Secretary of the defunct NRC, Professor Ken Agyeman Attafuah, is also well-known in parliamentary circles as a beneficiary of the same twisted system where the rules were bent to get her inn.

Indeed, there have been many high-profile cases in recent times where people of great leverage have been exposed for interfering in the due process or manipulating the system in similar manners. The former quack Director of the Ghana Law School is on record to have allegedly manipulated a list of selected candidates removing a qualified candidate’s name and replacing it with his daughter’s. Similarly, another of the aggrieved persons, who are on the war path with the Speaker, Kwesi Eshun, is also a beneficiary of a rotten who was also recruited without due process. That is how deep corruption has eaten into the fabrics of the Ghanaian society.

From a political perspective, political cronies like Ken Agyeman Attafuah must be rewarded for the role he and others played for a yeoman’s job they did during the NRC hearing. The fact remains that a large section of Ghanaians saw and recognized the NRC as a targeted process which was meant to score political goals. The process has utterly failed to reconcile a polarized nation but facilitators must be rewarded generously. So there is nothing surprising about the move by the Speaker of parliament to try hook or by crook to make sure the president’s choice is given the job whether he satisfies the eligibility criteria or not.

Professor Ken Attafuah, my humble appeal to you is to honourably return to the lecture room. We need more lecturers to rejuvenate University of Development Studies in the North. So if you truly want to serve mother Ghana, then that will be the right place where your contributions will be felt and appreciated. Exhibit to Ghanaians that you have no link with the powers that be and your actions during the NRC hearing were purely based on fair play.

Undoubtedly, in a well nurtured democracy, the Speaker must be called to order through police investigations, parliamentary committee investigations and hearings as soon as possible to clear the stinking aura around him and restore some credibility to that position and not who occupiers the position.

To my fellow discerning Ghanaians, it is time to wake up to defend what is right before our country slipped into chaos. Consider the case of Mr Hodari OKai, the former deputy director of Ghana Immigration Services, who is still jobless despite the ruling of the courts for the revocation of his dismissal, reinstatement and payment of his four years salary without delay. The CJA, NUGS, TUC and all progressive groupings and individuals must act now to stop the rot.

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