Award-winning Investigative Journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has lambasted the NPP government for what he describes as “discrediting the CSOs because of their opposition to the infamous Agyapa deal.
In a long Facebook post, the journalist wrote, “Apart from the extensive work done by the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General, as many as THREE private law firms were still engaged to work on the Agyapa deal.
Meanwhile, when the Auditor General applied to the Public Procurement Authority for approval to engage lawyers to help the A-G’s legal department face the numerous legal challenges arising from the surcharges and disallowances, he was denied approval. The system frustrated him and finally got him out of office.
If the naked thievery of our resources were dealt with, we wouldn’t be so desperate for 500 million dollars to warrant the cooking up of Agyapa in the first place.
The competence of those leading us may not be in doubt. What we cannot vouch for is their integrity, sincerity and commitment to safeguard the national purse and act in our collective interest at all times.
When a government is championing digitisation and a cashless economy but proceeds to print higher denominations of the currency to enable people to carry huge sums of cash around, you don’t question their competence, intelligence or sanity. They are not stupid.
You question their motives because bad motives can make wise and intelligent people take stupid decisions.
That’s why we must speak up. We must speak up not because we know more than them, but we’re the victims of the wrong things they do with the power we give them.
That’s why we must question not only the transactions but also the intentions and motives behind them, what they stand to gain and what we stand to lose in the present, short and long terms.
And those who came begging, “Try me!” should have the humility to accept criticism from civil society and other independent voices. They fought with you when you were powerless in opposition. With all their flaws, you courted their support and quoted their words as though they were memory verses to your political salvation.
Stop discrediting them. Remember you’ll need them again, one day. You will not be in power forever. That highly intoxicating spirit called power will leave your hands and hearts and minds one day.
