I wonder why African leaders make a mockery of the fight against corruption. If it is not one man clearing his agents of perceived corruption to pretending not to have heard about same, it is asking for lie detector machines to be used in interrogating suspected high criminals in the bureaus. Such is the latest calamitous pretense of the fight against grand theft in Kenya. The President suggested the purchase of lie detectors! That is all after the fact of corruption! By the way Swiss authorities have returned $300m of an estimated $6bn former Nigerian strong man, Abacha stole to Nigeria. I hear the money will be shared amongst the poor in Nigeria through an electronic system. I actually trust Buhari to fight corruption. He Is actually. I know some of his family members are either living in rented apartments and when his son was involved in an accident on a motorbike, he told his handlers who informed him about the son’s predicament that he doesn’t know his son owned a motor bike and that he should deal with his injuries. He stopped a slush fund that former president Obasanjo had created to pay his farm workers with state resources. As for Jonathan Good luck, he has him in his sight. And boy, he is rewarding househelps who volunteer information about buried dollars in the home of politicians. Now that is certainly some seriousness there.
And of course, two of the reasons VW car maker opened an plant in Rwanda is because the words of the VW CEO ” of ZERO tolerance for corruption” and a laser government focus on technical and technology skilled youth. And that cost only $20m generating 1000+ jobs all within 5 months. Imagine if we had the same scenario here in Ghana! 1D1F should have taken off long ago. How does one do business with a system that can tell promoters of investment and good governance that valid documents to understand a multimillion dollar deal cannot be located and yet PAYMENTS are being made? We need to change this attributes of a corruption republic because it is contributing to our depressing performance on the world bank’s doing business rankings. Imagine, we were 108th in 2016, dropped to 112th in 2017 and now 120th in 2018 all put of 189 countries ranked. Rwanda is 41st and one of three most open few destination for business in Africa! And we need our youth to be taught tech based skills not recruiting them into political wards. We must change!!
I am depressed!! Have a good night and oh when replying this post, think about your circumstances and that of your less fortunate ones. We all have.
By Franklin Cudjoe