Our elders have said it, owo ka aniberee meaning a snake bites or stings out of frustration or distress.
The last time the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, appeared in Parliament, he said, among other things, that there was no arrears and boasted that so much has been saved towards the settlement of the first batch of payments under the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), for which he was highly praised and applauded for the sound management of the economy.
However, because the DDEP was used as a major political tool, the government is doing everything possible to meet commitments.
But that is not the case for some ordinary Ghanaians, who instead of investing their finances in financial instruments or bonds, decided to supply food items under the Free Senior High School Policy in the Fourth Quarter of 2024.
Because of our obsession with partisan politics, our simplistic understanding is that anybody who does business under a certain regime, willy nilly, is a member or fanatic supporter of the political party that is in control under that regime.
However, it is a basic fact that not every such person is a political animal but a prudent individual who wants to deploy their finances prudently.
More imperative, in our country, services and supplies for government business in the fourth quarter, are usually paid for in the First Quarter of the ensuing year.
So, it happened that in September 2024, the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, spoke to me personally to help supply maize to senior high schools in the Ashanti Region.
He did so because most members of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) had recommended a company, Rostella Enterprise, as a dependent, committed and reliable supplier of domestic food items to the schools and the manageress of the company happened to be my wife.
She was initially reluctant but I prevailed upon her, pointing out that the Free SHS programme is one of the most transformative policy initiatives of the government, whose full impact would be realised after more than a decade of implementation, when the literacy rate of the country is assessed.
I also assured her that once it was a government project, payment could not be repudiated by any future government once it was established to be genuine.
As a micro businesswoman, she had more discernment than myself, an innocent public servant who had an idealistic appreciation of our fundamentalist partisanship considerations.
However, after much persuasion, she mobilised resources and supplied the food items.
Her initial fears started to crystalise when the new government in 2025,decided to undertake a forensic audit into those supplies before going on with payments.
Thankfully, the audit was concluded and in July last year, the President announced that all such outstanding payments were to resume.
Both the National Food Buffer Stock Company and the Ghana Commodity Exchange, because of her record and the comments from members of CHASS in the Ashanti Region, encouraged her to register for new supplies, which she did by paying the respective registration fees of GHc5000 each.
However, due to the infantile and puerile thinking that all such suppliers were partisan and loyal to the previous government she has not since been given a contract for supplies.
When implementation commenced and allocations began, otherwise cooperative officials in both institutions became elusive and hostile to her enquires including a comment by one of the key officers at Buffer Stock, that he was not a member of the allocation committee and should not thus be disturbed any more.
A few weeks back, she had assured that she was on the approval been list.
This can only be a reflection of our warped thinking that those who get contracts under a government programme are loyalists or fanatical party supporters.
The irony though is that when public, political and government officials get the opportunity to speak publicly, they openly proffer sentimental nationalistic slogans and regurgitate the false narration that the country belongs to all of us and no one would be excluded from the sharing of the national cake or resources and that government business is not based on nepotism nor partisanship but on competence, quality of work and value for money.
Thus for the past 19 months the debt owed to Rostella Enterprise and others like her, whose only crime was that they did good business with the past administration, have had their money in arrears and each time they call to find out, the refrain is that we are waiting for releases from the Ministry of Finance.
What is devilish is the fact that new suppliers appointed since 2025; ostensibly loyal partisan members of the government are paid from the Ghana Education Trust Fund.
The question is, if government is raising money and depositing it towards the future payments under the DDEP, why has the same government failed to pay for supplies, forensically audited and established to be legitimate.
What the hell is the difference between legitimate food supplied to Ghanaian senior secondary school students under the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo regime and those supplied under President John Dramani Mahama, if not because of fanatical partisanship consideration.
In an interview on Ghana Television last Tuesday, August 5, the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, my Law Class 2002 mate, pointed out that the uncapped portion of the GETFund, is being applied to pay for food supplies under the Free SHS programme.
During the past administration, when suppliers under the same programme were owed and besieged the offices of Buffer Stock, it became justifiably a political matter and the Speaker of Parliament visited Buffer Stock to understand issues after which he appealed to the government to pay the suppliers, ordinary micro and small scale business men and women.
It worked.
For my part, when the Ministry of Education resorted to what was termed emergency supplies, which attracted prompt payments but cost higher, I complained directly to the Chief of Staff to draw his attention to the injustice and the travesty of the act, where those who had their supplies in arrears were paid less whilst emergency suppliers who were paid promptly received higher.
She agreed with my submission that things bought on credit must cost more than those paid for instantly.
Things began to work thereafter.
Personally, what this government, through the Ministry of Finance has done to me is that, they have beaten me and compelled me from crying, but “anka wonua womu a yennyi wo mfiri mu.”
It is simple.
Beyond not paying my wife, as Chairman of the National Media Commission from 2018 to 2024, since the last Commission ended its tenure on December 24, 2024, we have not received our arrears for 2022, 2023 and 2024 although new members have been paid part of their allowance since they assumed duty in May 2025.
The Minister of Finance and his colleagues who were MPs together with other Article 71 office holders have received their full salary arrears together with ex gratia awards whilst members of the NMC, the least remunerated among Article 71 office holders are waiting endlessly for payment.
Members of the NMC are unqualified for ex-gratia because they are said to be part time, although Council of State members, equally non-permanent receive ex-gratia, as per the denunciation made by Togbe Afede, against the lodgement of ex-gratia money into his account some time ago.
Whenever any of the former members of the NMC call me as Chairman to find out when the arrears would be paid, I call the accountant who keeps on telling me that they had not heard from the Ministry of Finance although the ministry collected the details for the payment in March 2025.
Nsuo fono aponkyereni a ogye woo and more so, se kokoram amfere se obeto wo nan ho a wo nso wo mfere se wode asaawa anaa ntomago bekyekyere so.
That is why I am openly appealing and reaching out to my former Roommate President John Dramani Mahama to ensure that justice is done to the previous NMC members, and more so, suppliers under the Free SHS programme, whose supplies have been in arrears since September 2024, knowing that it is the tradition of our country to meet outstanding payments from the Fourth Quarter in the First Quarter of the ensuing year, and especially because all funds sitting in the accounts of public agencies between January and March 2025 were swept back into the Consolidated Fund at the end of March as it is usual.
