Chasing appointees out of the classroom

Elizabeth Ohene Opinion Jan - 26 - 2016 , 23:08

Every time the President of the Republic gives a directive to his Ministers of State or other political appointees and the directive is made public, I know immediately that the President is talking to the members of the public and not the appointees.

Such a directive is meant to impress the public and make us believe that the President gives orders and should therefore, be seen as a strong leader. As the President has given so many orders and directives that have been ignored, I wonder why he still persists.

The latest order is directed to all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives, (MMDCEs) through the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, and makes particularly, interesting reading. The directive states that His Excellency the President has ordered all MMDCEs nationwide, who are pursuing various academic and short courses to defer their programmes with immediate effect.

A lot of questions rise to my mind on reading this, but the statement goes further and asks regional ministers to inform all MMDCES in their regions to strictly comply with the directive.

Ridiculous threat

Are we to understand that when His Excellency the President has given a directive through the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development to his MMDCEs, he has to then ask his regional ministers to tell the MMDCEs that they are to “strictly comply with the directive”? Surely no MMDCE would dare refuse to comply with a directive from the President?

Or could it be that sentence is added to impress and give us the impression the President is deadly serious? But they are not done with us yet, the charade of a statement continues: “MMDCEs who refuse to go by this directive would have themselves to blame”.

His Excellency the President, the Master Communicator and his media experts who craft his statements would want us to believe that there are MMDCEs, they expect would or might refuse to “go by a directive from the President” and we are all expected to buy into a ridiculous threat to what might befall these puny appointees who would flout a directive from the President. I am afraid this is stretching our imagination beyond belief.

The first time I heard that there were Ministers of State who had enrolled in and were taking part in various academic courses I was quite alarmed. The last time I checked, being a Minister of State was not only a full time undertaking, some find that there was never adequate hours in the day to cope with all the things that needs to be done.

Since 2009, there have been persistent reports of ministers who have enrolled in academic courses; some on long distance basis and some on part time basis. A particular minister is reported to be enrolled in a British institution and it requires that he has to make regular trips to the UK. Some of the ministers were enrolled in local institutions and from all indications, Law and MBA seemed to be the most popular courses.

Not a new phenomenon

The phenomenon of senior public office holders enrolling in academic courses is not exactly a new one and our parliamentarians would seem to be the most enthusiastic degree chasers and Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) the most attractive institution.

I always wondered if it was possible that the work of a Member of Parliament (MP) could be done and still leave time to undertake a degree course, but as the years went by and more MPs lined up for the courses, I felt there had to be a magic path unknown to me. Or, I concluded, our Parliament must surely be populated by extraordinarily bright people who have academic capabilities way beyond what the rest of us mere mortals have.

I had wondered about civil servants I had met who had managed to hold senior positions in the service and enrolled and taken law courses and become lawyers. I think we can all accept that it is most unlikely that such a person gave anything near what he was being paid for to the service.

In much the same way I suspect that if you are going to be a full time Member of Parliament and enrol as a mature student and do a degree course at a university at the same time, something will have to give and the chances are it is the work of Parliament that will suffer.

Our constitution does not spell out any academic qualifications for persons who become MMDCEs, MPs or Ministers of State or even Presidents or First Ladies for that matter.

But it looks as though once people get to these positions; they are seized by the urge to acquire academic qualifications, even though they had managed perfectly well without such qualifications up until then.

If there is a feeling that people who hold such positions must have certain qualifications, I would suggest that it is best they acquire the qualifications before the appointments and not try to gain such status while holding the office.

I am well aware of the current fancy terminology that describes every day matters; multitasking, I think is the term that is employed for doing multiple things at the same time. I am afraid it is not possible to be a Minister of State or an MMDCE and undertake an academic course at the same time. If you are being paid to hold such a position, you should do that and nothing else.

People should not be appointed to positions and then try to get qualifications.

The statement that is supposed to have come from His Excellency the President on this subject worsens a bad situation. If MMDCEs have been enrolling in academic courses all the years of this administration, why are they suddenly being asked to defer such courses? Defer them till when? What in their circumstances has changed to merit such threats from the presidency?

Is directive linked to elections year?

I notice that every speech, every prayer, every argument in this country is now started with “this is an election year”; so I have to wonder if the directive for appointees to abandon their classrooms has anything to do with this being an election year. Is it acceptable to do these academic courses in the first three years of a presidential term and then become a firing offence in the election year? Why are these appointees being asked to stop their courses so publicly? What about the ministers who are reported to be enrolled in courses also? Have they also been asked to stop or defer or abandon them? Are their directives given to them quietly and directly by the President?

I doubt that those who are taking these courses are doing so to improve their capacities in their current positions; they are taking insurance for the day they are no longer MMDCEs or Ministers of State or MPs.

If your highest academic qualification was to have been Dining Hall Prefect in school and it was deemed good enough to get you appointed as a minister, I doubt you would make a bigger splash if you announced at your next vetting that you now have a Master’s Degree.

There are directives that might interest the public; getting MMDCEs and ministers out of classrooms with threats is not one of them.