EDITORIAL: Mr. President Please Stop This

THE GOOD OLD Book, known more commonly as the Bible, the holy book of the Christians, has an admonition against letting the sun go down on one’s anger. The holy books of other religions, like the Koran for Muslims, most likely have similar injunctions about allowing one’s anger to fester in the dark.

For anger beclouds one’s thinking and vision. It would appear that functionaries of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government might have allowed the August 10, 2002 sun to set on the anger stoked in them by ex-President Jerry John Rawlings’ positive defiance speech in Kumasi that day. Consequently, they have come up with some unclear thinking in our view. We are here referring to Chief of Staff Kwame Mpiani’s letter directing the ex-Presidential household to return all government vehicles being used by ex-President, except one.

A directive, which appears to have been obeyed, most likely also out of anger. The National Concord finds it incredible that such a letter was ever written, and we are appealing to President John Agyekum Kufuor not to allow anything bordering on pettiness in his name, for ultimately anything done by his lieutenants is done by himself. The buck does indeed stop on his desk. Many have faulted the timing of the Chief of Staff’s letter, coming just two days, both non-working ones, after the launch of the NDC Women’s wing at Kumasi where the ex-President in an obvious hyperbole characterised the ruling government as one of the worst he has ever seen in the country.

The National Concord additionally faults the very premise for the letter; that the Green Street Committer Report recommended just one car for the ex-President. Since when did the report of a committee become the final word on any substantive issue in this country.

The normal practice in government is that a white paper is issued on such reports, accepting, rejecting or noting the various recommendations. Where is the white paper, the NDC government wrote on the Green Street Report? If it was remiss on the issue, what was the position of the Transitional Committee on the matter?

Assuming the Green Street Report is still virgin, with no white paper written nor any other decision taken on it, the National Concord would expect the NPP government to issue one without delay on it and reject the one car recommendation.

In the considered opinion of the National Concord, no Ghanaian ex-President should have less than two cars, as the irreducible bottom line. And at least one should be of the cross-country type. How can anyone recommend and or approve one car for an ex-President in a country where Chief Directors of Ministries and Ministers of State, have two, three cars at their disposal? And if you give an ex-President one car, what happens to his vice-President, zero number of cars? Let’s get serious, please!

There have been calls in the past for the publication of the draft settlement package for ex-Presidents and their deputies. The National Concord supports this call. That way whatever is approved after full public debate would be preferable to the present situation, which can be said to depend on the “obey-wind-syndrome”.

Nothing we have said above indicates a support for ex-President Rawlings’ regrettable performance in Kumasi on that fateful day. It was way out of line, and with all the reactions so far, including that from his own NDC, the National Concord believes, he should hand his head in shame, if he has not already done so.

But the way to let him feel the weight of public opprobrium is not to play politics with constitutionally ordered retirement package.

He has been called to face the BNI investigators. That was proper, and he should be called there as often as he gives cause for it. However other non-crippling privileges, like use of the V.I.P lounge, could be withdrawn for a limited period. Suppose a member of the ex-President’s family need to go hospital on the other side of midnight, and the one car he has been allocated develops a fault. Does he stand by biting his fingers until the worse happens to that member of the family?

The National Concord is appealing to President Kufuor to immediately rise above what may be said to be his righteous anger and order a stop to the pettiness being done and rationalised in his name.

The hallmark of a Statesman, as opposed to the common politician is not to give in to destructive anger, and we do believe President Kufuor is a Statesman.