Revoke Kwame Owusu’s appointment [Article]

IT is not surprising some civil society organisations – the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) and the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) – and some well-meaning individuals – Vitus Azeem, former Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative; and Dr Stephen Takyi, a senior lecturer of the Department of Planning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology – as well as the good people of Ghana, have raised questions over the appointment of Mr Kwame Owusu as Board Chairman of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), especially after his escapades at the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), where he is alleged to have superintended over questionable expenditure.

We recall that in 2017, Mr Owusu, who was then Director-General of the GMA, organised an end-of-year dinner for staff at a cost of a whopping GH¢135,123. He explained that the authority budgeted for 500 people, despite a staff strength of 200, to allow for stakeholders, wives, girlfriends and dependants. He also organised a lunch for eight people at GH¢10,000. Both events were organised at a hotel which he owns, raising conflict of interest concerns.

That apart, Mr Owusu is also alleged to have abused his office by renovating his two-bedroom residence into a four-bedroom house to a cost of GH¢1 million, as well as causing the fixing of as many as 11 air conditioners on the facility. What really worsened matters in the eyes of the public was attempts by Mr Owusu to justify the spending. Indeed, in his response to the public uproar over his actions, he did not seem to appreciate that as a public servant he should have conducted himself in that way or used public funds in that manner.

In the face of the public basking over those expenditures, deemed profligate, the Transport Ministry, which oversees the operations of the GMA, instructed the board of GMA to probe the matter. That apart, corruption investigations have also been ongoing at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative of Justice (CHRAJ). But to date, nothing had been heard from either the GMA Board or CHRAJ while Mr Owusu tendered his resignation in February, this year.

It, therefore, came as a shock to the good people of our dear country when on June 18, 2019 – some four months after he tendered in his resignation – Mr Owusu was handed a letter appointing him as Board Chairman of the GRA. Some questions that immediately arise are: Was Mr Owusu exonerated of the alleged scandal at the GMA? Where are the reports of the GMA and CHRAJ probe, if any? Where does all that leave the government’s fight against corruption – one of the major issues that catapulted it to power in the 2016 general elections?

The Finder holds the view that it is not only out of place, but totally calamitous, to appoint an individual whose integrity has been questioned to the board of such a sensitive entity as the GRA. Under the circumstances, we think the most appropriate thing to do is to revoke Mr Owusu’s appointment because it sends a bad signal to all Ghanaians about the anti-corruption agenda that the government is trying to pursue.

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