Judgment Debt and Sheer Inertia

"Dun yeee feee." Translated: Darkness does not eat shit. Ga proverb.

I refused to comment on the issue of judgment debt payments in Ghana and particularly, the 52 (?) million Ghana Cedis the state paid to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome. My reason for the latter was that I smelt something funny from the beginning, so I decided I was not going to eat it. About the former, I concluded that the state organs have connived to rob the people of Ghana, they look on and do nothing. Maybe it was my own impotence that killed my usual urge to rebel.

In fact, the general discourse about the huge unwarranted enrichment of Mr. Woyome was absurd, bizarre and deliberately convoluted, so that what remained was not the issue of judgment debts, but rather a colossal amount, of variant guestimated figures, paid to an individual. That is what the people of Ghana remember. The surname which is the worst and most notorious in Ghana presently--Woyome.

But the danger in the kind of memory those who discussed Mr. Woyome left with Ghanaians is that it would allow other payments, and the illegalities thereof, to continue with such equal rapidity, unabated. For this, I cannot say the discussants were indeliberate. We cannot let them of so easily. Those who discussed the issue, especially the parliamentarians and government officials, have all at one time read the Auditor General's report, or the cover letter or memo. They know.

Ghana has been paying monies to individuals and companies, corporate entities, who file all kinds of claims in court that their contracts with the state, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), have been wrongly terminated or anything close to this. This has been going on for decades. Public officials superintend this rot. Since many of these MDAs do not submit their end year accounts etc. to the Auditor General, we cannot know for sure how much of tax-payer money is been poured into the bottomless pit of individual and corporate pockets.
What should be emphasised is that all this triumphs in lack of clarity of operations, information and knowledge. The Auditor General's report is now made available online, but many Ghanaians do not have access to it, mainly because they are unaware it is available. And the media? Well, they now are bringing the whole fiasco to light. It happens that the Auditor General has on countless occasions made the same recommendation to parliament: officials who cause the state to lose such monies should be surcharged. Let me add, prosecuted.

But there is a problem: the Public Accounts Committer, which sits on the report by the Auditor General forwards his recommendations to another implementing body. Unfortunately, or knowingly, the the Public Accounts IMPLEMENTATION Committee comprises people whose institutions are liable in the Auditor's recommendation. As expected, they do not implement anything against themselves. Parliament knows this, yet it has not bothered to change it. The chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Hon. Albert Kan-Dapaa says Ghana needs a Financial administration or tribunal to handle cases such as this. A sentiment the Hon. Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensa Bonsu has echoed late last week. In an interview with Citi FM this morning, Hon. Kan-Dapaa stated that only about 15 percent of the report is prosecutable, the rest require administrative action. He also said parliament can make specific recommendations to be implemented by an instituted committee commissioned by parliament. But why hasn't that happened? Sheer inertia? I don't know.

As for Woyome, the Attorney General has filed a case to have him repay the money. That is not enough. He misrepresented people. Isn't that a crime? We do not punish corruption in this country. For example, I cannot fathom why someone who steals or misappropriates state money should be thrown to jail without having him refund the money. He eats free in jail, no payment on housing. Nothing!

Well, what remains clear is that the state would continue to pay "judgment debt" to people. Public officials can deliberately abrogate contracts and re-award it to another company just so that their friend whose contract got abrogated can file a suit against the state and make money. Pure corruption. Both will go free. This reminds me of an article I read yesterday in the Ghanaian Times, written by Cameron Duodu, titled Financial 101. People can begin to set up schools to teach people how to get judgment debt paid them. Free.