'If you fail to build 3 mansions while in public office, you’re seen as a fool'

Source: starrfmonline.com  -  Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof Stephen Adei has observed that Ghanaians adore people with ill-attained riches.

“We as a society actually adore people who have money irrespective of how they got it,” he told Starr News Wednesday night after the launch of a book entitled: ‘Taming a Monster’ authored by former Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng.

“If you are a politician or you’re a chief executive and after two years, you haven’t built three mansions in your village and everywhere else, they say you are a fool,” he bemoaned.

He suggested the need for “civic education so that the average person does not adore somebody just because he has money, but rather will question: ‘How did you get the money,’ so it’s a cultural issue which we have to attack.”

In his view, the profligate lifestyle of politicians and public servants “in the midst of poverty,” festers and encourages corruption and wrongdoing in officialdom, adding that leadership must take the lead role in living by example.

Prof Adei also said despite the existence of the Public Procurement Act to frustrate corruption in the public sector, people in public service still manage to perpetuate wrongdoing.

According to him, there are instances where one person bids for the same contract three times in different forms.

He, therefore, said no amount of procurement laws will help clean the system without people of integrity.