Professor Ransford Gyampo, political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, has observed that the practice of democracy has not been developed to serve the interest of the citizenry and alleged that government appointees take advantage of weak democratic structures to amass wealth for themselves at the expense of the taxpayer.
He explained that there was the need for government appointees to develop structures that would serve the interest of the citizenry to avoid the situation where they would not be able to take advantage of democratic structures to amass wealth.
Prof Gyampo, who is also the Head of European Studies at the University of Ghana, in a seven-point post, averred that “it is about time we began to ask questions about the conduct of our leaders and demand democracy works better for us so as most political parties and politicians do not view governance as an opportunity to create, loot and share as it is considered to be their time to have a feel of the bounty.
“This has made it easy for political actors to take advantage of the system and our meager resources while handing out ‘peanuts’ to the citizenry because under our current “mis-democratic dispensation”, political appointees will continue to amass wealth, only give handouts, tokens and point to other shallow development interventions to the citizenry as a means of winning votes.
“Unfortunately, the citizenry also tends to be overly grateful and appreciative of the handouts, tokens and shallow initiatives, in view of their lack of knowledge, skills, information about the quantum of wealth and public resources that are being amassed by their leaders.
“Regardless of how incorruptible a leader may be, irrespective of how sincere and honest the head may be, so long as “it is our time to chop”, democracy continue to be ingrained in our psyche, politics, our kind of crude/corrupt democracy, will confer wealth on only those who have power via election and appointment.
“On the other hand, the citizenry will regrettably, continue to suffer, and wallow in subservient hero-worship of politicians, even as some continue to milk-dry public resources, mediocrity, poverty and economic miserisation,” Prof Gyampo bemoaned. -abcnewsgh.com
