Zero Tolerance in Trouble?

Zero Tolerance for Corruption, the leading policy of the NPP-led Government, which has won the Government much sympathy, commendation and respect since its declaration must be in some trouble. Transparency International Perception Index says after all it has been non-performing. Ghana is rated among 133 Corrupt Nations of the World.

It has set the Government's Minister of Information talking. He is saying in sum: don't say it loud ... lest our image abroad becomes tarnished. It is a cry of despair since it has been the view that with zero in place the index perception would be nil or not at all. But it has happened that zero is non performing, in fact.

As a result we occupy the 72nd Spot among the over all 133 nations "perceived" as corrupt or rather have learnings towards corruptions. But there is comfort in every situation however wretched. The position is not bad. We are not within the most corrupt in the first 44th bracket. We happen to be only corrupt in the second 44th bracket, which is consolatory, comparatively.

In the NDC time our rating was very poor as we fell within the first ten or fifteen of the most corrupt nations of the world. The bottom line here is that we are corrupt, which calls for action to smoke out the corrupt and bring him to justice.

This is just what the President is saying when he spoke to the Press on 10.10.03 at the Castle to register his displeasure with our dismal position on the corruption ratings. He must be a sad person indeed. His effort in carrying the high image of the country everywhere in the world should not be in vain.

As of now, all the world knows that there is a new captain on the rudder jokeying Ghana through the rough seas of corruption that has been our index for the past many years of one-sided democratic rule. The new leader is sinless; he is without leanings to corruption hence his Zero Fetish, which must be obeyed and worshipped unconditionally.

His edit in connection with Zero Fetish is worth recalling! "Any body with information about any corrupt practices among my People should give me the hint for the necessary investigations and prosecution, subsequently"...

It is serious, yes very serious. It happens to be the first ever edict to the best of our knowledge given to support Zero Tolerance for corruption, otherwise zero has been ailing since its proclamation, and installation about three years ago. Zero Tolerance for Corruption must endure in the political, social and in the economic systems or we will not be fit to rate ourselves among the virtuous men of the world.

In our little world for all we know the courts, for example, are corrupt. For them the law is an ass which goes wherever it is whipped to go to make corruption easy to realise here. The Chief Justice recently appointed and installed would not give any quarter to anybody of the Judicial Service found to be corrupt.... We live to see that Supreme Court Judge yet to be named for his corruption self.

If the Customs and Preventive's chief has to go on retirement prematurely recently, anybody of the corrupt in comparatively high position also could go. Zero cannot accommodate him.

And at the instance of Zero some Policemen are currently on interdiction. They allegedly were found in a ?30 million bribe deal in respect of some truck-load of sugar which allegedly was diverted some where to serve the ends of their corruption lust, There is corruption here in the Police Service to note.

And who will watch the Watchman when the very Watchman himself indulges in the robbery business, The assurance should be that zero will keep the gates, zero being our Lord Almighty? And so let it be for our eternal peace in the day and in the night.

There are also the pen thieves to watch in the public and civil services. They include the vote controllers and the purchasing officers, and the storekeepers who rope in the internal auditor and the accountant into their fold. They would he more deadly than the armed robber.

There is also emerging within the banking system the computer thief whose counterpart has been sighted at the Accountant-General's office where "ghosts" have been given names and made to collect salaries for the pocket of the "Syndicated" robbers there.... And who promotes the cause of zero in there.

The list is tall, taller perhaps than the very height of zero tolerance for corruption, the President's weapon against corruption. And zero has been ailing and not growing since its birth. It is only recently that it was given some boost by the setting up of the accountability office, which should go into action now, or it remains cosmetic to frustrate our zero fetish!

Indeed we expect the accountability office to sit in every office of our public and civil services and to lock up all the exit doorways by which corruption comes. And corruption is a thief who knows where to go, and when and how to reek in the corrupt gains.

But if this difficult to do, "Zero" consultants should be appointed to oversee, and review expenditure patterns in all the civil and public services before the external auditors come in to "hear" the whys and the hows of the where-to-fores of government's expenditure. Zero tolerance for corruption must be seen to be purposeful.

At least we are saying that even without any known and defined purpose, Zero tolerance for corruption as duly proclaimed has earned us a reduced place in the corruption ratings. Therefore if it is given the necessary boost to function in any way practically purposefully, the gains could be outstanding.

Some of us genuinely felt pity with zero tolerance when the President announced its installation in the political system. For we know that the machinery of politics is corrupt. It has been the case of developing democratic government's the world over. So we dared asked how can Kufuor's politics "succeed" with his immediate team of appointees without some liberal doses of corruption.

Indeed we held our breath when we realised that zero lacks definition, and form, and direction as preventive, and curative policy or something. And we concluded that it is one of those things of our politics that exists only in political speeches, and zero is one of those cosmetic crest ions.

Our fears were not without foundation. We sort of create the way for corruption to come by and invade us. For what reason which we cannot explain, we tend to over-indulge office holders with very expensive logistics support in the very big and expensive cars they use, and equally expensive furnishings of their offices and residents. In the process we over-bloat their ego and make them corruption-prone, virtually.

There is the other problem for zero where salaries and benefits of our Chief Executives happen to be exceptionally high - indeed higher than it can be imagined against our HIPC background, and zero initiatives, which should watch over corruption. We lie bad, so to say.

We cannot be sure of our assessment here because Transparency International that conducted the perception ratings did not hint us of the particular areas of their survey. Therefore we cannot assess either the authenticity of their results. But we cannot challenge their findings because we lack the necessary data in that respect.

Once when we encountered the IFC people for the aborted One Billion Dollar loan, we were told that officials they dealt with were found to be corrupt-free. And Transparency International was hiding there, who did not come forward to contradict them. So in the absence of any other indictment internationally, we may assume that our ratings have been based on the facts of our corrupt lives at home.

We are saying that our corrupt public life is traditional. Successive governments since independence consciously or unconsciously created our corruption index. When the people in the 1st Republic would have any more of it, our own Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah came with his "They say They say" Dawn Broadcast, which did not go beyond some Cabinet Reshuffling at the time.

But when the AFRC/PNDC People came, they killed people perceived to have been corrupt. Like Don Quixote, they even accused Makola No.1 market of corruption and demolished it, alongside a Mosque nearby.

But champions die hard they say. Those who came in to attack the champion called corruption soon because hostages of the champion who converted them into corruption itself which has since become part of their lives in the political system. Our immediate past political life has been corrupt which must have prompted Kufuor's Zero Declaration!

His declaration is still on course. We wish him well. He at least had succeeded in promoting the potency of his zero declaration by daring to put before the courts a corrupt minister of his government. He made history by that, which should continue?

Transparency International says it should. We need to do more to champion the cause of zero tolerance for corruption. We are corrupt. The proof is here by the kind courtesy of Transparency International - QED - Quod Erat Demonstrandum. Zero, be up and doing then.