Having freshly being disturbed by movements at the World Bank that ricocheted all the way into Ghana, we started wondering. We started thinking out loud about the peculiar standards of the World Bank and its chief executive, Mr. Robert Zoellick. What have they been smoking at the World Bank this new Obama Age, we ask?

Does the World Bank respect Africans at all?

Can someone tell us why the former leader of a gold-producing country who spends $1.5 million on imported gold medals ($65,000 dollars for himself), one who creates the highest national award for himself and conveniently disregards existing national procurement laws, one who took numerous expensive trips abroad without bothering to share information about the millions of dollars it cost the people in travel costs and per diems, can someone tell us why the Zoellick World Bank picked Mr. Kufour to sit on its global poverty task force?

Is the World Bank serious about empowering poor countries so those countries can develop their economies for the masses in poverty, or is the bank interested in showmanship and grand-standing, preferring instead to use persons with power to promote its own agenda and survival? What did the World Bank expect Mr. Kufour would bring to that “auspicious” poverty task force given the record? Consider that the candidate, Mr. Kufour, never paid a pesewa in income tax to support the poor in his own country.

Did the World Bank understand that the people of Ghana booted Mr. Kufour’s party from office for a very good reason? And did the World Bank know that shortly before selecting Mr. Kufour, their candidate had signed a retirement package for himself that seeks to expropriate the productive capacity of no less than 2,857 fellow citizens to support himself and his family, just all of one year? The incredulous reader can check out our “2,857-fellow-citizen” data by taking $2 million, being a very educated estimate of the cost for Kufour “ex-gratia award” to himself in the first year alone, and dividing that figure by $700. Dear reader, $700 is our liberal estimate of the 2008 Gross National Income/Gross Domestic Product (GNI/GDP) per capita for Ghana, however you want to slice it.

What were the World Bank and Mr. Zoellick smoking when they selected Mr. Kufour? Do two publicly funded and furnished houses, another house for an office, six chauffeur-driven-fully-insured BMWs to be replaced at the peoples’ expense every 4 years, tax-free payments and cash payment of $1 million dollars for a so-called foundation, and more money for entertainment and foreign travel for himself and his spouse, do all these sound like some “lean” taxes on those “2,857-fellow-citizens”? Administratively, do these fenced current and future expenses sound like promotion of a “lean government” agenda for a poor impoverished country that at last count owned over $7.7 billion to the World Bank, the IMF, and others. Consider the same individual was the head when you and the IMF granted over $4.4 billion in debt relief/write-off to the people.

Does the World Bank care Ghana is now wallowing in public debt, again? Did the World Bank forget or did they choose to neglect the fact that just as they were selecting Mr. Kufour for their pet program, they were with the other side of their mouth telling us all those public debts are causing a severe contraction of the Ghanaian economy?

Is a down-grade of Ghana’s credit to a B+ causing the World Bank as much pain as Ghanaians given that it is Ghanaians who must now pay more to get less money on the world market even as the World Bank jets Mr. Kufour’s around the world? And what about Mr. Kufour’s aversion to paying income tax to support Ghanaian children attending schools under trees? Did the World Bank ask Mr. Kuffour how goes the plan to ensure that no young Ghanaian citizens have to sit under trees while in school, ever again?

It is a new age. It is the Obama Age. It is truly a New World Order.

We say that it is time for the World Bank to be responsible and accountable to the people. We say that it is time for the World Bank to consult properly with all stakeholders whenever groups of individuals called politicians and their technocrats carry the full faith and credit of their people to the halls of the World Bank for loans in the name of the people. We say that the World Bank ought to be responsible. We say that Zoellick’s World Bank should demand some transparency and accountability and report some transparency and accountability to those people. The Obama Age requires no less.

© Prof Lungu, Okinawa, Japan, 5 April 2009.

Prof Lungu: Ghana-centered, Ghana-proud, always!

(Prof Lungu: Brought to you in part by www.GhanaHero.com). Read about it, listen to it --- FOIB – Are You Pickable, Mr. Politician. www.GhanaHero.com