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Opinions of Saturday, 2 November 2013

Columnist: Citizens Awake Forum

Government is full of organized criminals

Government is full of relentless disruptive of organized criminals

We the members of the Citizens Awake Forum (CAF) wish to state our displeasure of how some unscrupulous persons within the Mahama government who are sheep’s in a wolf cloth had eroded the state resources

As concern citizens founded on Accountability, we decided to keep mute for Mahama to restore sanity in the economy but the more we kept mute, the more things got out of gear.

It is unfortunate that monies meant for developments rather get to some individuals for no work done. Just under Mahama’s watch, the country is rocked with endemic corruption scandals. The likes of ISOFOTON (over US $300,000) SADA (Ghc 45 million), GYEEDA (Ghc 200 million), SUBAH (Ghc 144million), AZONTABA, etc all estimated around 5 billion had gone wasted living the state in penniless.

CAF once warned the government not to award contract to Jospong Group of Companies in that Zoomlion was cited in the GYEEDA report of financial malfeasance. More so, the group even advocated that Jospong Group of Companies must be investigated for his dubious operations and involvement with the government.

All these advice felled to a deaf ear. But what do we hear today. Corruption here, SUBAH there! It was not surprised to CAF that Zoomlion, a subsidiary of Jospong Group of Companies was captured in the World Bank report of paying bribes to facilitate contract execution under Monrovia Urban sanitation Project.

Interestingly, the government national resource which must be managed to benefit all rather lingers in the shadows of narrow sectional persons.

It is no doubt that some persons or companies associated with the government are trading on a large scale. As a matter of fact, some individuals are using Mahama as a protective cover ostensibly collecting monies on behalf of the government but in reality the monies ends up in their pockets.

Currently, there is a persistent and a pervasive feeling of cynicism, pessimism and hopelessness among the youth about the present administration of John Mahama. This in turn has popularized fatalism and transformed each into predators whose survival depends on the destruction of the other.

Not long ago, there was an increment on the utility tariffs which sparked a lot of controversies among Ghanaians. They all expected that the government would have subsidized the tariffs. But all efforts proved futile and that TUC threatens to embark on a nationwide strike.

It is rather embarrassing that as social democrats, the government finds it difficult to support its citizenry. Meanwhile, monies paid by workers as revenues for development are doled out by some individuals as their private property

With the present economic hardship whilst others enjoys, it must be stressed that when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice and that the most terrible walls are the walls that grows up in the mind.

CAF urges Mahama to take a bold step to defeat corruption else Ghanaians would continue to cry on his head for his lackadaisical attitude on corruption.

Long live Ghana!

Long live CAF!

And God bless us all!

Signed:

Ernest Kojo Smith, a farmer and the Executive Director of CAF (0240179530)
Lawyer Kwaku Osei Asare (Executive Member)
Kwame Ayisi Darko (Executive Member)
Ebenezer Appiah Apraku (Executive Member)


Motto: To Uphold Integrity and Accountability, the bedrock of a Nation’s Development©