“Without strong watchdog institutions, impunity becomes the very foundation upon which systems of corruption are built. And if impunity is not demolished, all efforts to bring an end to corruption are in vain“ — Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Prize Laureate
Two weeks ago, I noticed that my Driver License was due for its first renewal. I was pretty engaged at the time and decided to hold on a couple of days. Last Monday, I visited the Head Office of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) at the Police Church area in Accra. When I got to the facility, my first stop was the ‘Enquiries’ section of the Authority. I was given two options – either to do Regular (GHS52.00) or Premium (GHS164.00). Being a Monday, I had quite a bit on my plate and chose the premium service. After paying the required sum, I was ushered to Room 19 where I was taken through some processes. In less than five minutes, I was done with them.
While waiting, I wondered why the premium service could be that fast while those requesting for regular service could take as long as a whole day to go through a similar exercise. This situation reminded me of a similar situation I had experienced a few months back, while I was attempting to renew my Ghanaian Passport. Here again, I had to resort to the premium application process after my attention was drawn to the fact that utilizing the regular service was going to take between three and six months. I literally had no option but resort to the premium service which led to me receiving my new passport in fourteen days.
While processing this whole thing in my mind, I couldn’t but notice the strenuous efforts and struggles that these other applicants who had opted for the regular route had to grapple with. In most cases, some had to wait for between three to six months to receive their passports.
Back in 2011, the Greater Accra Regional Lands Commission, as part of one of the modules of the Lands Administration Project, decided to set up a pilot project for lands registration scheme. My outfit had a couple of landed properties whose title needed to be perfected. I engaged in some consultation at the office and we agreed to take advantage of the pilot office located opposite the Embassy of the United States of America at the time. The relevant documents were subsequently filed and within three weeks, the processes had gone from stamping through all the other processes with the Land Title issued. Unfortunately, the joy of that office was very much short-lived and it got closed after a year or so never to be reopened.
In April 2016, I submitted another land document for stamping and subsequent processes towards the issuance of the land certificate. It has been over seven years since then and we are yet to cross the point of plotting, let alone get to certification. A second document sent for stamping in 2022 is no where near completion, almost a year after filing.
Re-evaluating these scenarios, I realized that if the DVLA, Passport Office and the Lands Commission could use their same staff to offer premium service in record time, why did they have a similar set of staff to process the same service but over countless hours? Was it the case that these agencies of State deliberately create needless bottlenecks in order to encourage people into using the premium services so they could make much more money for the agencies? Is it the case that officials of these State agencies deliberately create the chaos and long queues so as to offer the opportunities for the several ‘goro boys’ that loiter around many these offices just to profit from it? I do not think that we fought to do away with the ‘goro boys’ system only to replace it with a structured bureaucratic structure which tapers out into a premium system designed to favour the financially endowed.
A month ago, I visited the Head Office of one of the State Authorities early one morning for official business. Immediately I drove in and parked at their open car park, a security man approached and told me that the over fifteen empty vehicle slots were unavailable since they were designated spaces for the Directors. As I moved to another part of the enclave, another security guard approached me that the area was yet unavailable. It had been assigned for the use of three other organizations that operated from the facility. Noting that I was getting quite incensed and had very few options for parking, the security guard then pointed to a five vehicle space and informed me that he could assign one for me at a fee of GHS20.00. I was getting late so I opted for it. I got the fee paid and obtained my receipt.
The offices were yet to open so I engaged myself with listening to a discussion on national development on one of our radio stations in Accra. As I did from the car, the security man was unknown to me also listening to the discussion. At a point, he remarked in his frustration, “Most of our big men in Ghana including my own big men here are all thieves and God will judge them all. All they do is to take bribes and engage in various acts of corruption”. Yet, here was a person who was acting as the agent of an organization that had deliberately created a situation that forced the hand of its clients to resort to paid parking services. Was it not the case that as a service entity, it was an obligation of the organization to ensure some parking space for people who came to transact business in its premises even if for some limited period?
At 8.30am thereabouts, the offices opened and soon the officials arrived and I got my business transacted. Upon my return to the car park from the meeting engagement, I was expecting this guard to accept a token from me in appreciation as he had said but no! He named his own price – GHS20.00. Tried as I did, he gave me the impression as though he had performed a whole heart surgery on me. He didn’t budge and took it. All this while, this guard had a little transistor from which he was listening to a sermon from one of our foremost charismatic preachers in the city.
As I drove away, I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief, wondering how we will be able to eradicate the menace of corruption in a society where it appeared that corruption was either endemic, ingrained in the system of endeavour.
The more I pondered on these episodes, the more I got convinced that many of the systems we put in place as a people have corruption underpinning them.
As a former Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood once said at the swearing-in ceremony of magistrates in Accra in October 2014, “Our country is caught in an unending spiral of decadence. Every day we read and hear of unspeakable corruption and abuse of the public purse by individuals and institutions entrusted with public funds. The situation has reached tipping point and our citizens genuinely wonder if any public official or institution can stand up to scrutiny”.
Indeed the comments of the revered Lady Justice is a truism and until we rid these systems of corruption and all its variants, we stand a danger of having to dine with corruption for a very long time.
Let us walk our talk as a people, please!
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