US President Harry Truman once asserted, “Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician and I will show you a crook”.
He was talking not of Ghana but America. On July 20th, 2026, a court sentenced Chairman Wontumi to 20 years imprisonment in connection with crimes related to Galamsey.
In the old days, nobody from his party would have dared to defend him. This time, as they did in response to the travails of Abronye and Miracles Aboagye, the NPP seem to have rediscovered its love for the rule of law and due process.
The party that didn’t protest when its vigilantes went into a courtroom to free accused persons while in government and cheered as its government harassed journalists into exile and shut down lawful demonstrations while declining to investigate the murder of citizens attempting to vote by police screamed about the need for due process from the rooftops.
According to BBC, General Secretary Justin Kodua said, “The fight against illegal mining cannot become credible only when it targets political opponents in respect of whom evidence of wrongdoing does not exist”!!!
And of course, the NDC fraternity that upon the attainment of power unleashed an avalanche of mainly partisan ” nolle prosequi”s to end the legal travails of its party members while loudly proclaiming ORAL directed against the NPP members has discovered the virtues of probity and accountability like Rawlings did before flipping on Mabey and Johnson, Ghacem cement and the “donkomi privatizations” of state assets to cronies.
Our 2 parties under the 4th Republic both love corruption– unapologetically and irrevocably– despite paying lip-service to accountability. Unfortunately, this has been true of every government since independence.
My concern now is whether the judiciary has been completely corrupted. In the 1963 Kolungugu case, the 1970 Sallah case and the 1994 31st December cases, amongst others, our judicial branch showed it could stand up to governments. Is that still the case?
Would Wontumi be heading for jail if he was an NDC bigwig? Would he be going to jail if the NPP was still in power? To return to corruption, there have even been attempts to justify it by invoking our culture.
As the Akans say, “the person who mashes groundnut into paste inevitably has some paste sticking to his/her hands”. These are false justifications.
First, the direct answer to the proverb is that if the guy mashing the groundnuts washes their hands diligently no “paste” will stick to the hands.
Second, the attempt to blur the lines between bribes and gifts are deliberately misconceived. Virtually every adult and most children can distinguish between gifts and bribes.
Finally, most Ghanaians and Africans have no difficulties in demonstrating integrity when they work abroad. As Transparency International’s Mary Addah put it diplomatically, “Enforcement remains inconsistent” and we have “normalized acquiring wealth without knowing the source”.
Ms. Addah also called for a “value-based” education. Unfortunately, that will not work. We educate the youth everyday with our worship of wealth, corrupt “day-to-day” behavior and “win-at-all-cost” ethos.
What we do matters more than what we say. As long as we continue to buy elections and auction procurement contracts, the youth will do as we do, not as we say.
Kofi Annan said, “If corruption is a disease, Transparency is an important part of its treatment. “. Corruption is wrong, even in the eyes of God. Isaiah 5:8 says, “Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land.” And Micah 7:3 adds powerfully, “The powerful dictate what they desire, thus they pervert justice.”
Here are some solutions. According to a publication by Bosio, Hayman and Dubose, published in Journal of Cost Benefit Analysis by Cambridge University in 2023, corruption has an estimated global cost of 1 trillion USD per year. And it adds 25% to African procurement costs.
In the World Bank’s 2020 Enterprise survey, 23.7% of firms said they were expected to give gifts to get contracts. This rises to a third in developing countries. The solution to this is e-procurement.
In India, e procurement led to 12% increase in quality of roads and 8% decrease in costs. In Brazil and Mexico, the decrease in cost reached 25% in some cases. A second solution is to actually fire and prosecute corrupt officials. A third solution is for anti-corruption bodies to do their work.
Article 218(e) of our constitution obligates CHRAJ ” to investigate all instances of alleged or suspected corruption and the misappropriation of public moneys by officials and to take appropriate steps, including reports to the Attorney General and Auditor General resulting from such investigations.
There is also EOCO and OSP and the police. Our problem is not our laws and institutions on paper. It is in our character. As Ephraim Amu said, “Aduru me ne wo so—“.
May God bless Ghana.
Arthur Kobina Kennedy ( 21st July, 2026)
