Fire ineffective heads of public-sector entities

If it is true that the public-sector wage bill now eats up as much as a tad over 60 percent of total tax revenues in Ghana, then taxpayers ought to demand value for their tax money.

Surely, ordinary people in Ghana have a right to expect the public sector to be efficient - and public-sector employees to be helpful, honest, diligent and highly productive?

Perhaps, society ought to listen to those who ask whether the time has not come for all the political parties in Ghana to unite and lay a bill before Parliament, to be passed into law, making it possible for the president to dismiss senior public officials guilty of gross dereliction of duty.

Those who make that suggestion, point to the fact that sometimes the dereliction of duty is so glaring and so egregious that there is consensus in the country that those in charge of a particular public entity ought to be dismissed instantly.

Yes, we must ensure that public officials have security of tenure and that there are safeguards to ensure that they are not victims of arbitrary action by politicians.

However, the question is: why should ordinary people in Ghana be constantly inconvenienced because senior public-sector employees fail to do the work they are paid so handsomely for, properly?

This is the 21st century, yet, those in charge of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) are failing in their corporate mission of providing Ghanaians with treated drinking water.

Why should such failure continue to be tolerated - when the availability of treated water is vital for public health reasons, I ask?

Surely, if the nation is spending such a large proportion of total tax revenues paying public-sector employees, including those running the GWCL; not firing those in charge of such a vital public utility company for the patchy nature of the delivery of treated water to Ghanaians cannot continue to be justified?

Corporate leaders, whether in the private-sector or public-sector, are hired to solve the problems that confront the companies they head.

If the GWCL cannot deliver water to homes, schools, offices, factories etc. on a daily basis, why allow those failing to resolve the problems that confront the company, which hinders its ability to deliver treated water to cities, towns and villages nationwide, to remain at post regardless - and be paid zillions of cedis a month, and enjoy Arabian-oil-Sheik-style perks on top of that, for abject failure?

How many times have public utilities in Ghana not promised better service delivery when asking for tariff increases - but have failed to honour those selfsame promises, when regulators have approved the requested higher tariffs for them?

The only way to ensure that the public sector is productive is to hold those in charge of public-sector entities accountable for their actions and inaction.

It ought to be specified in the employment contracts of the top echelons of the public-sector that unless they can justify why that should not be the case, they will be held personally accountable for the actions and inactions of those below them.

That will make it more likely that they will ensure that those under them do what is right at all material times, in terms of fulfilling their corporate and institutional mandate.

Perhaps if, those in charge of the GWCL and other public utilities such as the Electricity Corporation of Ghana, knew that failure to deliver on their companies' core mandate would end in their dismissal, Ghanaians would not be inconvenienced to the extent that they now are...by those public utilities.

Then there are those at the Controller and Accountant General's Department, for example, some of whose callous attitude towards hapless, elderly pensioners in the evening of their lives after serving Ghana throughout their working lives, has to be seen to be believed.

It is intolerable that so many pensioners are treated so shabbily by employees of the Controller and Accountant General's Department, after devoting their working lives to serving their country.

Then there are the endless frauds perpetrated by rogue Lands Commission officials, who help some wealthy people forge documents, to enable them steal other people's land.

The question there is: why do those in charge of the Lands Commission not show creative leadership by designing the Lands Commission's internal processes, in such fashion that, fraud of that nature can easily be detected - and those found culpable when such fraud is unearthed, quickly prosecuted for their crimes?

The time has come for Ghanaians to demand accountability from the top echelons of Ghana's public-sector.

Top public-sector officials must be fired if they fail to ensure maximum productivity from those employed in the public-sector entities they head.

Enough is enough.

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