Your Most Reliable and Dependable Source

Intimidating and Threatening Road Contractors Is Unconstitutional.

Sometimes, it is quite jarring to watch some of President Nana Akuffo Addo’s ministers speak. Either they come off sounding like a bunch of juveniles on-a-happy-go-around or bleating like a cluster of supplicants straining desperately to please the boss.

If you listen long and hard to them, you would think Ghana is a dictatorship like China run by an authoritarian political figure.

It is certainly not a pretty picture watching these ministers shoot off at the mouth. They are unfailingly arrogant, grossly inconsiderate, and believe Ghana belongs to them alone.

Their one agenda is to threaten, intimidate and bully Ghanaians who don’t share the same political ideology or hold similar political beliefs. Generally, they give the appearance of uncouth and unpolished civil servants.

I am referring of course to the recent patently absurd mutterings of the minister of Roads and Highways, Mr. Kwesi Amoako Atta pertaining to complains mounted by Ghanaian contractors against the government over lack of payments for work done years ago.

The minister is reported to have threatened to withhold government contracts from contractors who have the temerity to verbally assault the President.

In other words, contractors who dare speak out about shoddy treatment at the hands of the current administration would be blacklisted. Incredulous —- the sheer audacity of the minister to even contemplate uttering those threatening words speaks volumes about the state of affairs in Ghana today. It should concern progressive and well-meaning Ghanaians.

In fact, Ghanaians should take offensive at the minister’s poor choice of words. It is not only unconstitutional to intimidate and bully a fellow citizen, it is also a blatant violation of the values we hold so dear. Nowhere in our constitution does it explicitly state that it is illegal to say unpleasant things about the President.

Then there was the deputy minister of defense, retired MAJOR Derrick Oduro bizarrely calling for the immediate arrest of former President John Mahama and some other top official of the opposition NDC for claiming that the NPP is training a group of party fanatics to wage violence during next year’s elections. This would have been believable if it wasn’t so laughable.

Need I remind the cantankerous major that the two gentlemen have every right under the sun and that right is guaranteed by the constitution to speak their minds without fear or intimidation on any issue relating to the welfare of our dear country

All in all, the utterances of these two ministers indicate to a large extent how far the country has become intolerant. Our freedom of speech is being trampled upon by the NPP with no compunction at all.

Painfully, the administration is gradually but steadily eroding the rights Ghanaians have earned over three decades of democracy. IT IS TIME WE SAT UP AND SAY SOMETHING BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

 

Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.