Code of Conduct: Only if it’ll last!
It’s almost too beautiful to be real: an African country, not counting Rwanda, South Africa and (till the death of President John Magafuli) Tanzania, where political appointees are banned from receiving gifts or favours; where appointees cannot do as they please.
Ghana has taken the first steps towards that utopia with John Mahama’s Code of Conduct for his appointees.
Fantastic code — only if it will last!
Only if we won’t play New Patriotic Party (NPP)/National Democratic Congress (NDC) football with it, in the same way as we now have NDC/NPP laws interpreted by Supreme Court judges who are churning out NPP/NDC rulings and judgements!
Only if Afenyo-Markin, Minority Leader, will, as Board Chairman of ECG, not look on as 1,350 containers and vital electrical cables belonging to ECG disappear from the harbour, only to “second the motion” in 2025 when the rot which he superintended is exposed in Parliament by the Energy Minister!
Most important to me: only if the people of Ghana will be bold enough to report abuses of power!
Take workers of GIHOC Distilleries. This week, their Deputy CEO, Magdalene Ndamley, accused the immediate past CEO of allocating to himself GH¢40,000 every week!!!
She said the moneys were sent to him physically every Friday and by Momo if he did not report for work.
My point: the most powerfully worded Code of Conduct cannot stop a rot if workers (and all citizens) passively look on as little drops of corruption and impunity swell into a mighty stinking dead sea.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Mahama Code launched this week.
I give a thumbs-up to two items: the ban on “high-value gifts” exceeding GH¢20,000 and the use of government funds for hampers or gift items.
Even better than the paper on which the code is written, I love the words of the President.
“This document is not ceremonial,” he said at the launch.
“It is a living and enforceable framework.”
Question: Enforceable by whom? Is the code in a form that can go to court?
There should not come a time when the guilt or otherwise of an appointee is only what NDC or NPP talkers determine during talk shows.
Mahama Code
Under the Mahama Code, “appointees are expected to use respectful and civil language, even under provocation”.
Remarkable, isn’t it, coming from a government headed by John Mahama, a master in the art of strong unparliamentary or undiplomatic language.
Only a few months ago, in October 2024, then Candidate Mahama, in reply to Bawumia’s ‘50 Questions’, shot back: “It's about the economy, stupid!”, quoting a line from a 1993 Bill Clinton campaign in USA. As Vice-President of Ghana, John Mahama described the NPP debate over the use of oil money as “baloney”.
These words may not be an insult in countries such as America where a child can tell the father, “Don’t be silly!” and not be considered offensive.
Not in Ghana. Like LGBTQI, our culture hates such language.
Do Codes of Conduct have precedents in Ghana, apart from what John Dramani Mahama himself wrote on a piece of paper to his appointees in his first term as President?
Sometime in 1971 or thereabouts, the National Liberation Council (NLC) government sponsored a civic education campaign chaired by Dr K.A. Busia that splashed posters everywhere:
“Don’t accept gifts, they are bribes, don’t accept bribes, they corrupt”.
When I advocate that the Code should be made law-enforceable, I have in mind the UK where the exposure by the media in what has become known as the ‘Parliamentary Expenses Scandal’ in 2009, resulted in resignations, sackings and retirement announcements.
Several members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were prosecuted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. The Speaker of the UK Parliament was pressured to step down for approving the questionable claims.
Code of Conduct in Ghana? In the First Republic, there was no Code, per se, but President Nkrumah had forbidden certain infractions by his appointees and his word was law.
What became known as “One car, one house” started with Krobo Edusei, Minister of Industries whose house in Accra was given to Ministry of Defence to accommodate the Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Otu.
The ‘Code’ hit Krobo Edusei again in 1962 in the famous “Golden Bed” scandal. His wife, Mary Edusei, bought a 3,000 pound sterling bed from a department store in London.
When Krobo heard of the purchase, he called to ask his wife to return the bed, but the wife was adamant. Krobo later had to threaten her with divorce before she returned the bed.
The resultant brouhaha in Ghana led to a further probe into the Minister’s assets whereupon it was found that he was worth $1,400,000 though he was on a salary of $13,000 per year as a minister.
In compliance with the Code of Conduct, he was fired.
The Code was unwritten, but in the First Republic, Nkrumah’s word was law.
The writer is the Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com
