<<Print>>

Hon. Mahama Ayariga has inveighed against his colleague minister in a manner which pushes us to draw varied conclusions about the insincerity of the government. While we empathise with the Information and Media Relations Minister as he battles with the difficulties posed by a failed propaganda project he has championed in a distressed economy, we are unable to come to terms with the quantum of insincerity in which governance has been mired for some time now. At the time that we began whining about the rising tide of government insincerity, the appreciation of the reality had not permeated as much as it has done today. We are excited, yet saddened that the Information Minister, whose schedule is basically presenting developments about government business so the President and his team would look good, regardless of the outright untruth underpinning the releases and statements so delivered. Whatever emboldened the minister to be as brusque as he was when he bewailed the Finance Minister�s truthfulness in his presentations about the economy is beyond our ken. We can only hope that providence is influencing the turn of events. Time was it when Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia stated that toying with figures about the economy is an unsustainable venture. Now that the chickens have come home to roost we are better informed. Such official mendacity about fiscal matters can only yield dividends in the short term but when the reality pops sooner than later, those behind the doctored details would definitely be embarrassed and like mongrels, they would tuck their tails between their hind legs, crestfallen. If Hon. Terkper has decided to go on the path of truth away from mendacity, because having once been bitten he is now twice shy. The schedules of a Finance Minister are at total variance with those of his counterpart who is charged with churning out half-truths and in some instances, falsehoods in a desperate bid to whitewash the tainted colour of government. Now the cat is out of the bag. We are the wiser about how so much half-truths and lies feature prominently in the management of information from government. With the Bretton Woods Institutions� radar transfixed on Ghana, we just wonder how the propaganda minister expects his colleague to doctor the figures and the facts as a means of managing the disappointment of Ghanaians. Besides, are Ghanaians not witnesses to the effects of a distressed economy as their real incomes continue to dwindle uncontrollably? Hon. Mahama Ayariga joins his colleague Hon. Baba Jamal in this business of lying to Ghanaians. The latter was reported to have enjoined district information officers to tamper what they churn out with a dose of lies as it were. When making government look good by turning truth upside becomes a cornerstone of governance sincerity cannot be an attribute of those in power.