By Kofi Akordor
Some of us knew it will happen sooner or later. We foresaw the most rational thing being done when the management agreement with Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) will be thrown into the dustbin where it appropriately belongs.
The AVRL management agreement followed a pattern that has become our national culture. I mean the tendency to look outward at the least excuse for solutions to our problems. Just before the AVRL agreement, the country went through two similar agreements on behalf of Ghana Telecom, the national telecommunications operator.
In 1995 or there about, an agreement was signed with Telekom Malaysia to manage the telecom operator which was going through management and cash crises. By the time the Malaysian management experts left in 2001, Ghana Telecom was not left in any better health but was more devastated and pillaged by the high-earning expatriates from Malaysia.
Typically of us, we did not learn any lesson, and so a new management agreement was signed with Telenor of Norway who also brought its brand of management to Ghana Telecom in 2003. That agreement expired or was abrogated in 2005 because there was no visible sign that the health of Ghana Telecom was better than the Norwegians came to meet it.
We all know what happened to Ghana Telecom finally. It was sold under controversial circumstances in July 2008 for $900 million to the Vodafone Group which acquired 70 per cent shares, while the Government of Ghana took home a paltry 30 per cent. That was how the country lost control of its vast telecommunications industry.
Some of us were, therefore, genuinely apprehensive when the government of the day decided that the best solution to the challenges facing the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) was a foreign management consultancy. I put my thoughts in this column.
The truth is that the GWCL, like all other service providers and, to a large extent, many public institutions, is facing numerous challenges, but human resource is the least. The GWCL has some of the best engineers and managers the industry could boast of.
The company has not been able to deliver its mandate over the years because it suffered and continues to suffer from one major canker – heavy politicisation. The management of the GWCL and that of almost all other public institutions has been heavily politicised to the extent that management positions do not necessarily go to the best but the loudest in terms of sycophancy. Those who try to do the right thing often find themselves hitting the concrete wall of political agitators. They are either bent or are ejected.
Many of our public institutions, notable among them Ghana Airways, have collapsed not because as a nation we lack the requisite human resource or qualified and dedicated Ghanaians to manage them but because we lack committed political leadership that is prepared to separate politics from business.
When the AVRL, which has its origins from The Netherlands and South Africa, was given the contract to manage the country’s urban water systems for a five-year period, we knew it was a wrong move. Many of the details of the agreement were not made public, but we were told that, among other things, AVRL was to ensure that more people got access to water, to plug loopholes to check revenue leakage and ensure that less treated water was wasted.
The contract did not provide that AVRL should bring even a wheelbarrow or a shovel, so straight away it meant AVRL, under the contract, was not expected to lay even a metre of new pipeline or build new treatment plants. It came to feed on what was already in existence — something that was built from the sweat and toil of Ghanaians. Strangely, even its own workers were not in agreement with the renewal of the contract.
The AVRL came with nothing and it was to use GWCL revenue staff to collect money for services it had not rendered and went home with fat commissions and consultancy fees at the end of the day. There was nothing special about AVRL. What it had which our local managers did not get was insulation from interference from any quarters and the free hand to operate because it made sure those clauses were captured in the agreement.
Many well-meaning Ghanaians have said repeatedly that as Ghanaians, we cannot assert our independence if we fail to be our own masters. One person, Mr Kwame Pianim, arguably one of the best economists produced by this country, has been a crusader on that front. He keeps reminding the powers that be that our continued reliance on so-called foreign consultants is not only sapping our national resources but also trapping us in perpetual inferiority complex and taking away our national dignity.
Most of the people we bring here as consultants come nowhere near our local experts who are ignored because they do not sing the same political or ethnic tunes. Cronyism and patronage are the twin evils undermining the administration of our national affairs.
Second, those given the jobs are not given the free hand to deliver without hindrance and interference.
Giving the same autonomy and independence, local experts can easily manage most of our institutions with excellence and with better results. Mind you, the local manager is not only working for money but also he is determined to build his own country and so his commitment will be guaranteed.
The technical audit on the performance of AVRL proved the obvious — that it could not find answers to the problems of GWCL. Meanwhile, it has drained the national coffers of millions in foreign cash. We have also, in a way, succeeded in reducing our self-esteem and making us look more inferior.
We need to establish self-confidence and begin to recognise our strengths in every sphere of national endeavour, including managing our national institutions. We need to stop making appointments for their sake or as a reward for loyalty.
We should be able to entrust our companies into local hands who should also be given the same management contracts which assure them of good returns and the freedom to take bold decisions for the good of the companies involved.
We should be able to disengage politics from serious national business if we want to make progress. It does not make sense to train people and abandon them for less-qualified people just because the latter are foreigners.
The GWCL would have gone the way of Ghana Telecom, Ghana Airways and many others long ago but for the fact that the privatisation of water is a very dangerous proposition. The problem lies not in our incapability but the failure of our leadership style and a mentality which does not recognise self worth.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment