Beyond The Abrogation

Now that the chickens have come home to roost, we are more primed to interrogate further what went into the smelly ICT projects which generated so much political and fiscal dust.

As projects which lined the pockets of private corporate bodies and their accomplices in the corridors of power, they constituted for government a conundrum outwitting their craftiest propagandists.

The initial response to the opposition bombardment was the ordering of a probe whose report became another kettle of fish. The President’s ill-conceived probing of the report prompted questions about the integrity of his action, it would be recalled. It would appear that the outcome of the probe into the first probe would never be known, one of the many being kept to the chest of government.

Enter the latest reaction: the abrogation of the government/rLG, Zoomlion projects expectedly made the lead headlines yesterday and formed the lion’s portion of discussions on the airwaves, dwarfing all others.

When concerned Ghanaians, especially the opposition, cried foul about the projects and what for them were financial aberrations contained therein, they courted the opprobrium of those who had vested interests in the programme and its manifold modules.

Even after this embarrassing closure represented by the face-saving action, the emanating news has been the subject of varied interpretations by government minders: the reportage in some channels is just too tainted as to present the true picture.

Such channels have presented the story as though it is the commencement of a major assault on corruption by government whose commitment in that direction is unflinching.

If government, cornered by the unsavoury turn of events, sees in such an abrogation a welcome breather, which it needs badly at this time, it has failed.

Questions are being posed about the details of the programme, the roles of individual government appointees and technocrats. Above all, what sanctions awaits them and will these be administered on them?

By the time attempts are made by the appropriate government appointees to respond to the raised queries, we would have had a clearer picture of the soiled hands and their roles.

Until these questions are addressed, the cacophony surrounding the projects would prevail as the wounded government struggles to extricate itself from the snare it has found itself in.

We find it interesting and laughable that government is claiming that the contract was unsolicited for. It sounds as though the service providers dumped their proposals on government in a manner which left them with no choice but to go along with the Zoomlions and rLGs. And if we may ask, how could these private companies force projects into the clenched fists of government?

Source: Editorial/Daily Guide