Culture of Corruption
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), 23/Mar/2011 12:00, 34 days ago
There is a culture of corruption in Ghana. I have heard it said many times but have struggled to understand what this really means. After all, ordinary people seem so honest. Market women and street sellers have chased me down the street after realising that they have accidentally short-changed me by a few pesewas.Juliana is, in many ways, like a nineteen year old girl you might find in Britain. From a relatively advantaged family, she speaks English as well as she speaks her local language and has the typical confidence of the young-and-privileged that borders on arrogance. She dresses in tight jeans and plaits her hair into a neat style. She flirts with boys to get what she wants. She uses make-up to disguise the remnants of her teenage acne. She likes Westlife, Michael Jackson and R&B. Local folk music is old fashioned and unexciting to her.I first met Juliana when I was riding home one afternoon. She waved at me to stop and asked if I am the white man who plays the guitar. Can I teach her to play, she pleaded. Several people had asked me the same question before so I told Juliana the same thing I had told them: if she buys a guitar to practice with, then I will consider teaching her to play. Juliana nodded happily and went bounding off. She called that same afternoon to tell me that her mother had given her some money and that she’d just bought a guitar. I agreed to give her a few lessons.The guitar is not a good one and, as the music shop owner told us when we went back to complain, was“not built by the white man for the African weather” – despite the fact it was made in China. The first pen I stuck under the bridge to raise the strings had snapped so Juliana had brought the guitar to the house for me to fix.Juliana wants to study music at the University of Legon in Accra because, as she says, she likes music. She doesn’t play any musical instrument and knows nothing of music theory but claims to be able to sing. This is true but, sadly, Juliana doesn’t really hear when she strays out of tune. I have told her that she must practice the guitar for two hours every day and then, maybe, after a few months, she will be able to play some basic tunes. She is polite but gives the strong impression that this sounds like far too much effort.Juliana has finished senior high school and this qualifies her to become a‘pupil teacher’. With a chronic lack of qualified teachers and massive class sizes, especially in rural areas, pupil teachers are placed in basic schools in an attempt to fill the gap. As with every other Ghanaian teacher, pupil teachers do not actually want to be teachers. It is a temporary hardship. Juliana was made to become a pupil teacher by her mother who happens to work in the same regional education office as me and was sick of having Juliana hanging around the house doing nothing.As I tuned her guitar, I asked Juliana how her school was doing.“Oh,” Juliana replied lazily, “I wasn’t in school today. The pupil teachers all had a meeting at the district education office.”I have been to Bongo education office many times so it was natural for me to ask what the meeting was about.Juliana revealed that the district office in Bongo told the national education headquarters in Accra that the pupil teachers, over seventy of them in Bongo district, have been working since August 2010. In fact, Juliana told me, none of the pupil teachers were working until the end of February 2011. The deal between the district education office and the pupil teachers is that the office takes half of the wage package for these months and the pupil teachers keep the other half. There may be a dozen education officers in Bongo education office who will share the spoils. When the district office sends the information in August, Accra must organise themselves before sending wages to the accounts of the pupil teachers and payslips to the district office. Not being very organised, this usually results in a big delay and a great deal of payment arrears. The district office will not place the pupil teachers until the arrears are sent. To make as much money as possible, the district office tries to get as many pupil teachers in their district as possible but do not want them to work. Juliana gets 270GHc per month as a pupil teacher *. Others get more than her because they achieved better senior high school grades. Seven months arrears of about 300GHc each for seventy teachers is 147,000GHc (£64,000) from the national budget in Accra. There are nine districts in the Upper East Region. In Bolga district, Juliana tells me, the pupil teachers have not started working yet despite Accra believing them to have started work in August 2010 and paying them accordingly.The meeting was called because the payslips arrived at the district office, showing that the pupil teachers have finally received their arrears. Unfortunately for the education officers, the pupil teachers had mostly spent the money. Juliana had bought a motorbike, new clothes and a mobile phone. An angry standoff took place and a new deal was eventually agreed upon. Each pupil teacher must now give the education officers 150GHc each (10,500GHc in total).I went to the regional office and was talking with my colleagues about what I had discovered. They already knew about the scam– it was common knowledge and not at all surprising. It takes place in every district, I was told. Why, I asked, don’t the people in Accra find out? I should have predicted the answer. Money is sent from the district offices to the national headquarters in Accra. Everyone takes their cut.Veronica’s son was a pupil teacher in a rural school in Garu-Tempane district, also in the Upper East Region. He worked for a full year, from September 2009 to September 2010, and therefore refused to agree to any corrupt deal with the district office whereby he should give them a cut of his salary. The district office therefore contacted Accra and blocked his salary. He still has not been paid and is still refusing to agree to the bribery. Veronica is trying to use her contacts within the education establishment to get the money sent through but has, so far, not been successful. Unsurprisingly, Veronica’s son has quit working as a pupil teacher and is now trying to find work with an NGO.This, then, is the culture of corruption I have heard so much about. It is blatant, systemic and, as is illustrated in Ghana’s most celebrated novel, ‘The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born’, almost impossible for one individual to rebel against. It is difficult to prove – following a paper trail will reveal nothing.What’s more, Ghana is well known as a beacon of transparency in the mire of West-African corruption. How much worse in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria?I asked Juliana what she thought of this scam to get more money for nothing. Whilst agreeing that the scheme is dishonest, even corrupt, Juliana reasoned that teachers, she included, do not get paid enough so should take whatever they can, even if it involves a little trickery.It seems the culture of corruption will continue for another generation. The victims will continue to be the poor and the powerless– in this case, basic school pupils in rural schools.*As a comparison, a VSO volunteer gets 330GHc per month, a qualified senior high school teacher gets 500GHc per month, a policeman gets 850GHc per month and the average Ghanaian wage is 200GHc per year.