Come Mr. Tally Man, come tally me bananas

There has, in Ghana in recent weeks, been major drama around the sale of state assets. It is a Ghanaian past-time, a peculiar feature of our national existence, that the focus of the chattering classes zooms in on one issue at a time.

Usually, that issue lasts for no more than two weeks, then another takes over. But while it lasts, the shocks and after-shocks, make it feel infernal, even volcanic and explosive, then it dies. Suddenly! This time, it is the SSNIT pension fund’s effort to divest its interests in hotels that have come up.

Everywhere in the civilised world these days, divestiture of state assets to people or entities associated with politically exposed persons, “PEPs”, as they have come to be known, generates controversy. We are after all not living in the era of the Medicis of Florence, in the 15th century. Therefore, it is proper that such deals should be scrutinized.

A love for drama and sensation, however, by the general populace and sadly the media, can drown the systemic and structural issues of decay in putrid lagoons of short-term partisan contests. The search for solutions to improve the long term health of society, then gives way to what will offer the most partisan-political advantage to a specific side. In so doing, we mimic the Nuremburg trial spirit where a manhunt for Nazis obscured the fact that there were many unacceptable causes of the emergence of Nazis. Causes that will implicate many sanctimonious pretenders, if openly discussed.

With magnificent literary power, the iconic African scholar, Professor Claude Ake, offered the following insights into the nature of our post-colonial elites in Africa. Especially those that came to control and subordinate the state to their narrow interests.

“The post-colonial state in Africa is very much like its colonial predecessor; its power over economy and society is enormous, arbitrary and it is largely privatized. For all but a few of its citizens, it is alien and remote, uncaring and oppressive. They encounter it as ruthless tax collectors, boorish policemen and bullying soldiers, corrupt judges cynically operating a system of injustice, a maze of regulations through which they have to beg, bribe or cheat their way every day.”

The political class looks after its own interests, even at the expense of the rest of society. In that effort, it has mastered the art of competing among itself with incendiary rhetoric that changes nothing systemic in actuality. We may all join in that farce, one which in reality is a conspiracy of silence by the political actors, where the deep fault lines are concerned. Or focus on the structural resolution of root causes.

It is a matter which is their right to choose, but one which is also of some legitimate concern to others, that major actors like organised labour are focusing more on the episode than on the system. Obviously, the two – episode and system – interact. But the system is what exacts the most egregious long term disastrous and deleterious consequences on society, in the sad and dismal end.

We are faced with a situation, since the beginning of the 4th Republic, at least, where state assets of all kinds have been flogged under less than transparent circumstances, in many cases. The starting point has to be where we are on this serial and opaque journey of officially sanctioned brigandage and thuggery of state assets, becoming public knowledge. It is an awareness that must lead to resolution. The blind facts, without partisan colouration, illuminate public reasoning. In the end that makes democracy effective.

Forests, parks, gardens, buildings, land, machines, access to water bodies and natural resources, digital spectrum for telecommunications, and whatever else one can imagine, held in trust as our commonwealth, have just passed on to individual private hands. Whole government owned quarters in places like Ridge and Cantonments and Labone and Roman Ridge, etc., seem to evaporate from government books. Ending up in private ownership, in bizarre circumstances. It is now said that this trend has been replicated in all regions of Ghana.

What is the criteria of allocation? Where and how are these transactions publicised? Why are they not deployed as sales transactions through the Ghana Stock Exchange? Who are the real decision makers? What is the validity of the business models that are supposed to be better for society than the status quo, who decides they are? Who does the valuations and audits the terms of the transactions? Who are the beneficiaries, the real beneficiaries, at the end of the line of such transactions? To what political parties and political causes do such beneficiaries make donations? Are such donations given the right transparency?

These are some of the issues that all Santaclaus Democracies such as ours face. It is not enough for the political opposition to shout about one side’s alleged transgressions, while deliberately keeping silent about their sides known criminal misdeeds.

The parliament that now finds the time to make legislation, not to make traffic less for us all, but to clear the streets with their sirens so they can move away from us faster, must refocus. But equally, it is important that civil society groups like organised labour do so too. The thirst for immediate bloodshed among proximate actors can blind people to real causes.

At the heart of the matter, I suggest, lies three issues:

• The broken and over politicised appointment process and regulation of public sector boards.
• The opaque and impenetrable mechanisms of funding of our political parties, which in turn have considerably corroded and corrupted our public procurement processes.
• The character of a state and a pretence at democracy that has alienated those who are in political leadership from the mass of their compatriots, to such an extent that accountability of government to the people is now an abstract notion.

It may be complex to reach beyond the 4th Republic for now. Legal scholars and experts should interrogate and navigate the maze of impediments that various indemnity clauses impose on our structural political realities today. As a starting point of accountability though, may we suggest that all presidential candidates and parliamentary candidates for the 2024 elections, state where they stand on this:

THE STATE/GOVERNMENT MUST PUBLISH ALL ITEMS OF STATE PROPERTY OR IN STATE CUSTODY THAT HAVE BEEN DIVESTED TO PRIVATE INTERESTS SINCE 1 JANUARY 1993. LIST THE ULTIMATE BENEFICIARIES. WE MUST BUILD A NATIONAL REGISTER FOR THIS.

The day that happens, night will turn to day and many, many, many people will run away.