A Concerned Citizen

Apathy has always been and is still an attitude that Ghanaians have cultivated for themselves (ourselves, I should say) and are reaping the fruits which is contributing to the development of our dear nation. We are almost blinded about a lot of things that go on around us except for politics (exceptions should pardon me). When we do show concern, for most of us all we do is to talk about it and it ends there. I say ‘we’ because I am no different, for I am in the process of doing same through writing. At least, talk is a step forward. There is something that as a concerned citizen, I am showing my concern the best way I know how. Indeed, it hurts to discover that whilst some people are honestly searching for jobs that would enable them function well to the best of their ability others are just comfortable to be just employed and do nothing except receive pay.

There is man who lives in my neighborhood whom I shall call Mr. Coffie. Mr. Coffie is newly married but unfortunately the government of the proud republic of Ghana does not care about such little things as the nature of both their jobs has taken them outside of Accra; his wife to the north and he to the east. It came to my notice that Mr. Coffie came home to Accra about every three weeks or so and would always stay about a week before returning to his station, sometimes in the absence of his wife. I wondered aloud what kind of work allowed him that much flexibility and I was told that he worked at a district assembly as an accountant. I learnt that it was one of the newly created districts in the region and the assembly had no materials to work with. According to a relative of Mr. Coffie, they did almost nothing at the office except to learn the art of gossip. It explained why Mr. Coffie could leave his station for a whole week to be in Accra; because he was getting paid for doing nothing. Who would want that money? Certainly not our government.

I made a friend on the streets of Osu not long ago. Lloyd introduced himself as a graduate from the university of Cape Coast who was about doing his national service. At the time we met, he was just coming from the place he was posted. Went to have a look at the place, I guess, and see if it met his standards. During further talks, I found out he was working at a state-owned company while he was schooling. He got the job after his diploma and national service. He had just completed a degree program and had been posted again to do a second service. Lloyd could have simply reported to the right authorities that he had already served the country but does he? He confides in me that his station is quite flexible and therefore by explaining to his supervisor that he already had a job and greasing his palms a bit (provide the supervisor was willing), he could get away with showing up once or twice at the workplace and get his allowance whilst he kept the real job. Now, how clever is that?

Mr. Coffie and Lloyd are not alone. There must be several others that squander hard-earned taxpayers’ money for no work done…or maybe that is exactly what they are paid for-to do no work. These are just two instances out of the lot. Not forgetting the ghost names on the controller and accountant general’s pay roll. I wouldn’t be shocked to discover there are whole institutions that have been set up by the state, either consciously or otherwise, with people given positions that have no defined functions or no materials to work with. There are also a lot of duplicates in the system. For a small country we do have a lot of policies, either implemented or otherwise. Two or three institutions set up by the state doing almost the same work that it becomes difficult to tell the difference in function because the difference is that small. Meanwhile just one body would have just done fine.

Such is the country we live in. Who wouldn't be proud to be a Ghanaian?