'Investigate all cases of diverted national wealth'

THE President of the West African Bar Association (WABA), Mr Femi Falani, has prompted the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate all cases of diversion of national wealth.
He said CHRAJ should delve into cases where national wealth was said to have been diverted and privatised to the personal gains of a few public officers and their collaborators in the private sector.
Mr Falani was speaking at a public lecture organised by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) as part of this year’s 9th Constitutional Week in Accra. It was on the topic “Election: An essential element of a democratic society”.
He said in a society where members of the ruling class are perceived to be diverting public wealth to their personal gains at the expense of the majority of the people, democracy could not flourish, and called on CHRAJ to uphold its constitutional mandate to investigate such allegations of corruption and mismanagement of public funds and make appropriate recommendations for prosecution and recovery.
“The Government of Ghana owes it a duty to learn from the recklesness of the Nigerian ruling class and mobilise Ghanaians to take control of the economy in the overall interest of the people.... because democracy cannot succeed in a poverty-stricken environment,” he added.
He said as crude oil had been discovered in commercial quantities, the NCCE must educate Ghanaians on the tragic consequences of the “gross mismanagement of the oil wealth by some greedy and visionless ruling class in Nigeria”.
“While the majority of Nigerians, including the people of the rich Niger Delta region live in abject poverty, the rapacity visited on the economy by the rulers is unimaginable,” Mr Falani added.
On the current global economic crisis, he urged the NCCE to promote debates on the economic agenda of the government.
He said now that western countries were bailing out their economies with trillions of dollars, the NCCE should mobilise Ghanaians to raise issues with the World Bank and the International Monetaray Fund, which influenced the imposition of the Structural Adjustment Programme on Ghana.
He said for buying shares in banks, mortgage institutions and rolling out dollars to save ailing industries, the Breton Woods institutions must be taken to task for compelling Ghana to withdraw subsidies on education, agriculture, health, transportation and housing.
“The NCCE must, as a matter of urgency, encourage the government and the people of Ghana to appreciate the dangers in exposing the economy of the country to the vagaries of the so-called market forces,” he added.
He said it was high time Africans looked for ways of eradicating poverty and not be content with alleviating it by reviewing the economic policies of the Bretton Woods institutions that had made rich countries such as Ghana poor and placed them in a position where their annual budgets were funded through aids provided by those who had captured the commanding heights of the economy.