Politics; cause of our failing state-owned firms

In every human institution, there is a need for a leader, one who will bring orderliness, one who will supervise, bring about the need transformation that yields out of the box results and one who will ensure the smooth running of the organization to make it a profitable and self-sustaining venture. But can we say the same with the way politics drives the minds of our politicians in leading this nation called Ghana? 

In Ghana, there are so many organizations, some of which belong to private individuals, religious bodies and the government. Organizations established by individuals are mostly headed by the one who conceived the business idea but the religious and government-owned organizations are headed by members of such grouping and decisions of leadership are influenced by members’ performance in contribution towards the cause with or without necessary qualification.

The government-owned establishments in Ghana are a bunch of attractive ventures to the employees because it pays fairly and it gives room for employees to run side jobs. Every government has its own leaders for these firms, so just like the president, ministers and member of parliament, these leaders are changed over a period of four years that notwithstanding if the president finds discrepancies in the leader’s performance of his or her duties, with immediate effect the leader is relieved of duty or sometimes forced to take an indefinite leave (which is a modest way of terminating their appointments).

Leaders in these government organizations are underutilized and that goes a long way to affect productivity. They are named by the president as leaders, yet they don’t make decisions based on their expertise in the office they operate.

I believe leaders are used to their full potential when they are allowed enough room to operate without interference, that does not imply that they shouldn’t be supervised, they should also be held accountable for their decision but in this case since they don’t make all the decisions, holding them accountable is impossible because that will mean holding other prominent men accountable.

In Ghana, our constitution gives the president excessive power. For instance, giving the appointment to public office heads automatically puts him in control meaning he can ask for anything from them and the appointee can’t turn him down. So what we mostly see is that all public officers work in the interest of the incumbent, instead of the people. In essence, one could say that the president is the boss of all state-owned establishment.

The government should have its role to play in the running of the public establishment, that is, to only execute checks and balances, leadership should be by qualification and longevity and not by appointment and partisan. Knowing the kind of politics being run in this country, making the government choose people into leadership will only mean putting the interest of the political parties before that of the nation.

This is the genesis of selfish ambitions, have you ever wondered why private establishments flourish more than state-owned owned establishments? The private business owner is more interested in the future of his or her firm than the present profits because they believe the future is always better than the present.

Unlike the government leaders who have been placed in charge for a limited time, they know they have no future at their current post, so like a bank robber they stuff their pockets and bags with as much money as they can before their timer runs out and this is as a result of party politics.

The way forward from this mess is to stop choosing party faithful (those who contributed money for the campaign) as leaders of firms and let the already employed ones work their way to the top or advertise and conduct interviews like normal firms. Top official members of the government must stop pushing their relatives (family and friends) to be employed by these firms without the necessary qualifications and experience whiles the people who were promised jobs and have the critical skills loiter the streets without jobs.

Arise Ghanaian youths let’s call for amendment of the twenty-seven years (27) old constitution.