IS GENERAL NUNOO MENSAH GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY? General Nunoo Mensah has been vilified and demonized over his utterances during a ceremony to commission a 9-unit classroom block he built for the O’reilly Senior High School. Did the General see something we have overlooked as a nation? The import of his statement has to do with lack of patriotism, selfishness and immoral behaviour on the part of many people of our dear nation. After soberly reflecting on the General’s concern, I was startled by the reality of how perilously Ghana is failing; and I will tell you why. The moral fibre of our country is on the verge of collapsing to the disadvantage of the poor; the trotro fare from Ofankor barrier to Accra Central is supposed to be GHC1, and during rush hours, no trotro goes directly to Accra. They load to Nkrumah Circle and collect a fare of 80GP; as the vehicle approaches Circle, a mate shouts, “Accra, Accra, Accra” and collects another 70GP from Circle to Accra. In this case the poor Ghanaian who has budgeted for GHC1 as transport fare, ends up paying GHC1.50 – a whopping 50% increment without any increase in fuel price, and we look on without complaining. A farmer for example brings his or her perishable food stuffs from the Brong Ahafo to Accra, the Market Queen knowing very well that the produce will go bad by the next day, and that the poor farmer is at her mercy, decides to pay an unrealistic price for the food stuffs, sometimes buying on credit at the detriment of the underprivileged farmer. Not too long ago, my association as per an MOU with the Ghana Education Service to establish literary clubs in all senior high schools in Ghana decided to do a regional launch in one of the regions. A young man called Forgive from the Regional Education Office who was tasked to help us with organisation, decided to scamper the programme because we refused to bribe him to do the work for which he receives monthly salary. He had called all the 15 participating schools to tell them that the programme has been cancelled, but for the timely intervention of our administrator who made a quick last-minute follow-up to avert the situation, it would have been disastrous for us. Even though we have forgiven Mr. Forgive it is about time we do something about such disgusting phenomenon as a nation. It is also not unusual to see civil servants of institutions using paper and printers in their offices to print documents for their private businesses. Some also spend hours on end engaging their friends in needless conversation on office phones. The cumulative effect of such practices is that more money is wasted on logistics and bills, creating shortfalls on income meant for salaries and allowances of workers. And woe betides the government for delaying in its attempt to look for money to solve the problem; the same workers who caused the problem would threaten the government with strike actions. And have you also heard that the presidential task force at our ports has uncovered nefarious activities of some companies which have resulted in the loss of 360 million cedis to the State? This is gargantuan oo, about seven times the much talked-about Woyome judgement debt payment. The same people are complaining that the economy of Ghana has worsened. I could go on and on with plethora of examples, but want to cite a last instance which is of utmost worry and concern which has to do with the way most heads of Senior High Schools behave. Before the 2013/2014 admission of flesh, oh sorry, fresh students, the Ministry of Education set up a committee which comprised of stakeholders such as leaders of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) to come out with a standardized and uniform fee for all public Senior High Schools, and it was agreed that new entrants in all schools must not pay more than GHC400, but what are we seeing? No school has complied with this directive; heads of public second cycle schools are taking between GHC1,100 and GHC1,700 from the poor Ghanaian. Also of interest is the fact that after the Minister of Education issued an order that protocol admissions would not be countenanced henceforth, many BECE candidates who have been placed in their schools of choice by the computerized system could not find their names on the admission lists of those schools! Heads of such schools have blamed this on excessive protocol. Protocol from where? What kind of lawlessness and nonsense is that? Please forgive my language; I am getting irritated and I now understand what motivated General Nunoo Mensah to say those words. These shameless heads are also members of NARGRAT who have been threatening government with strikes. The most annoying thing is that some of these nation wreckers have been turning around to blame poor parents who could not afford these exorbitant fees for not voting for free SHS. Who born dog? With this kind of shameful attitude, what is the guarantee that even if government makes a policy that fees should not be paid at the SHS level, heads of schools would still not collect illegal fees? Without mincing words I think heads must roll. All heads who have not complied with these simple directives must be fired with immediate effect. I don’t even care if it will affect all of them in the 525 public senior high schools. Kai, I have really missed Bombardier Koku Anyidoho, he would have bombarded them one time. If you don’t know, go and ask the director of ECG in the Ashanti region. Folks, if the picture I have painted is not frightening; I do not know what else is. And I think that is the angle General Nunoo Mensah was coming from, even though some of his words were a bit harsh, I believe he has seen this dangerous trend and spoke out of emotion and as a soldier. Instead of us maligning him, let’s call for a national debate on these issues in order to move our dear country forward. My verdict as to whether he is guilty or not is a unanimous 9 – 1 decision in his favour. But for those strong words I would have given him 9 – 0. The psalmist will say: “ selah,” meaning think about it. Kikikikikiki, don’t joke with me wai. I’m also a JSC. By Anthony Obeng Afrane
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 16:53:15 +0000
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