At
the Independence Declaration in 1957, Kwame Nkrumah said that Ghana is “free
forever”. We may be free from the visible hands of colonial power but not the
invisible and unethical hands of professionals. From scandal to scandal, Ghana
has suffered at the hands of professionals, be it Accountants, Lawyers,
Surveyors, Auctioneers, Auditors, Policemen, and Economists beside others. The
recent bank crisis and the Menzgold issues underpin this concern. This brief
article highlights how professionals have contributed to misbehaviours in
Ghana.
Misbehaviour
can be thought of as the opposite of ‘behaviour’, which is the range of actions
and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems, or artificial entities
in conjunction with themselves or their environment[1],
which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the (inanimate)
physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various
stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious,
overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary[2].
Misbehaviour is synonymous to bad behaviour, misconduct, and disorderly conduct.
Irresponsive
and rent-seeking institutions and personal of public institutions have
encourage misbehaviour among citizens. It is no news that bribery and
corruption are the bed fellows of the Ghana Police Service. The Lands
Commission is arguably one of the most corrupt public institutions in Ghana.
The leadership and members of the Commission are Chartered Surveyors who are
members of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. This is a fact but does not
suggest that these leaders are corrupt or have been caught in any corrupt act. They however preside over an institution that
is known to be rent-seeking and corrupt, one of the reasons for the many
challenges in the lands sector.
The
inflation of property values to enable borrowers obtain bigger loans is common
among the Surveying professionals. The alleged inflation of the Chancery
building (for an embassy) in Norway are all examples of this problem. A
building that was sold for US$3 million in 2017 commanded an excessive open
market value of about US$12 million in 2018. These are untouchable issues but
the constantly emerge in private discussions. A value for money audit shows
that the new Headquarters of the Lands Commission, which was awarded in 2016,
was overpriced by about 18 million dollars. It follows a directive by the
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, for a review of the Bill of Quantities and
other relevant documents relating to the proposed Head Office Building.
Accountants,
Auditors and the big four accounting firms – Ernst and Young, KPMG, PriceWater
Coopers, and Deloitte were figured for negligence and the certification of
financial statements that did not reflect the true positions of companies.
Thus, aiding companies to misinform the public and investors about the true
performance and health of many companies. These groups of professionals cannot
be absolved of wrong doing in the case of the current bank crisis in Ghana.
Auditors and Accountants have been blamed by analysts and regulators for the
collapse of uniBank, Sovereign, Construction, Beige, Royal, UT and Capital
banks, an issue the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana) is
investigating.
The
recent Menzgold ponzi-scheme issues has also brought to light how Lawyers could
be instrumental in misinforming the public and investors about the legality of
a business. The Learned Lawyer Kwame Akuffo in particular has been instrumental
in this regard. As Counsel for Menzgold, he has on countless occasions as reported
in the media challenged the regulators – Bank of Ghana and the Securities and
Exchanges Commission - about the legality of Menzgolds trade in collectibles. As
a lawyer of reputable standing, perhaps, one of Ghana’s finest legal
luminaries, his professional position on the matter provided customers of
Menzgold and potential investors an impetus to continue investing. It was even
the case that some customers accused the Government of using the Bank of Ghana
to witch-haunt Menzgold based on the perceived ‘faulty’ legal interpretations
of the learned Lawyer.
It
has eventually turned out that Menzgold’s trade in collectibles is a Ponzi
scheme. In that case, the promoters of the business including legal advisors
may be culpable of deceiving the public. Even if it is not a Ponzi scheme and
there is a lacuna which could lead to some regulatory arbitrage, one wonders
which calibre of lawyer will advise a client to operate a business on such a
scale without a license! I listened with surprise any time the learned Lawyer
defended the illegal status of Menzgold’s trade in collectibles on the basis on
some perceived regulatory arbitrage. As ‘notaries’, lawyers play a key role in
any economy. One wonders whether his legal
position could not be interpreted as negligence? This raises interesting questions about what
motivates professionals to accept jobs from companies. Pecuniary incentives
could be a cause as was in a crucial reason for the relaxation of professional
standards in the case of the 2007 Global financial crisis.
Don’t lawyers owe the public a duty of care? Increasingly, his
affiliation to Menzgold is a been interpreted as a big endorsement for
illegality and anarchy, an example that must be discouraged. Professionals must
understand that there are so many people out there who admire them and follow
and implement their opinions on public issues religiously. Therefore, they owe
the public a duty of care, at least morally if not legal, to ensure that the
right information is put out for public consumption. There is no doubt the existence
of great legal minds in Ghana - the current President and the likes of Ace
Ankomah, Asante Bediatuo, Ayikwei Otu, Kwame Akuffo, Kpebu, Philip Addison, etc.
However, many lawyers in recent times have bemoaned how legal training in Ghana
is constantly churning out relatively sub-standard lawyers compared to the
lawyers of old. Is the legal profession therefore becoming a ‘market for lemons[3]’?
I leave this question here for further discussion later.
As a student of
Information Economics, I have learnt that information in itself has little
value. The ownership of information, medium of dissemination and affiliates
influence the value people place on the information. That is why professional
opinion is held in high esteem. It is believed that these professionals have
undergone the necessary and sufficient training to provide better advice than
the untrained mind. To the extent that many customers of Menzgold believed the
legal opinion of Lawyer Kwame Akuffo over the advice of the regulators, the
learned Lawyer faced a greater responsibility to be right. However, history has
taught us that professional certification although necessary is insufficient
for quality detection in all cases. Low levels of professional development in
Ghana thus has negative implications for quality detection. Perhaps, a reason
for the increasing role of professionals in financial and investment
misbehaviour in the country. There is a need to rescue the public from these
professional misbehaviours.
By: Kenneth
Donkor-Hyiaman, PhD.
[1] Hemakumara,
GPTS. and Rainis, R. 2018. Spatial behaviour modelling of unauthorised housing
in Colombo, Sri Lanka. KEMANUSIAAN the Asian Journal of Humanities25(2):
91–107, https://doi.org/10.21315/kajh2018.25.2.5 Spatial Behaviour Modelling of
Unauthorised Housing in Colombo, Sri Lanka | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327864214_Spatial_Behaviour_Modelling_of_Unauthorised_Housing_in_Colombo_Sri_Lanka[accessed Sep 27 2018].
[2] Elizabeth
A. Minton, Lynn R. Khale (2014). Belief Systems, Religion, and Behavioral Economics. New York: Business Expert Press
LLC. ISBN 978-1-60649-704-3.
[3] A market where the
quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of information
asymmetry between buyers and sellers, leaving only "lemons" behind.
In American slang, a lemon is a car that is found to be defective only after it
has been bought.
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