Politicians must be held criminally liable for floods – Budu Koomson

Source: citifmonline.com  -  A retired army chief, Captain Budu Koomson has counseled government to forego the quest to be popular among the populace and rather focus on executing harsh developmental projects.

“You don’t have to be popular all the time…sometimes; you have to do

the unpopular things to get things done. Leadership is not all about popularity and leadership is not that cozy…but at the end of the day, your sign as a good leader is courage…if you lack it, you will be a whimp,” he remarked.

Capt. Koomson on Citi FM’s The Big Issue argued that it is high time some public officials were held criminally accountable for some of the disasters which have hit the nation.

“It’s a criminal negligence of execution because for instance, the motorway will be developing potholes and I dare say that some very top managers in the Ghana Highways may be living in Tema and they drive to Accra every day. Until there is a catastrophic accident or something happens, what has that manager been seeing?” he asked.

His comments were in reaction to the flood which submerged Accra on Wednesday and caused serious damage to households and businesses as well as the GOIL filling station fire which claimed over 150 lives.

According to Capt. Koomson, a lot of action plans have been developed by successive governments to prevent the perennial flooding, fires and other major disasters, but due to the lack of courage and fear of losing votes, these plans have gathered dust on the shelves.

“Government says it has identified seven water ways that come into the city and if we know it, is it the lack of courage which is a cardinal prerequisite for leadership, is it lack of knowledge to implement things or is it the lack of money?” he queried.

The former army chief observed that Ghanaians “are too docile; we don’t hold our state managers and political leaders accountable for things; we are so pliable. We take everything thrown at us.”

Capt. Koomson, however, noted that it is encouraging to note that gradually, citizens are “growing a spine to become assertive.”

He thus advised that the public must begin piling up pressure on the nation’s leaders to work, adding that “we now have to get active; we have to intervene.”

He pointed out that if “we had been critical with them [government], we may also have helped them to grow the spine to do what is right

Capt. Koomson further stated that God has been sparing Ghana a lot of catastrophes.

According to him, the perennial flooding, the various market fires, the cyclical cholera outbreaks and other unfortunate incidents are God’s way of “warning us gradually.”

He observed that, “these catastrophes are getting bigger and bigger and it’s not because of the lack of knowledge. We have it…but the issue is that do we have leaders and managers who can think exploratory; who can anticipate things?”

“Yes, we are all responsible but that is not why we didn’t give power to all. We gave power to a few…and we have been cowed to always sing their praises and never be critical with our leaders.”