ONE of the clearest signals emerging from the functional democratic order is the prevalence of the rule of law, which includes but is not limited to the unhindered and effective functioning of organs and legally established institutions of State.
When State institutions are recognised and allowed to function within their respective functions, they attain a higher national stature that anchors them to promote the public interest and, in so doing, function to meet public expectation.
This notwithstanding, there are certain important values we can lend to our democratic dispensation that will better protect and promote social peace, cohesion, order and stability and in this way help accelerate socio-economic development for the betterment of the lives of our people.
This is in the area of building, supporting and sustaining strong State institutions with the objective of protecting the interests of all.
Unfortunately, by virtue of the extreme partisan politicking we practise here, important State institutions whose effective functioning is crucial to efforts at building a successful nation are being unduly chastised, run down, sabotaged and even condemned by some members of our society on account of their narrow parochial interests.
The Police Service, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Judicial Service, National Security, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), etc, have, at one time or another, suffered from such acts.
The latest to be visited with such negative acts is the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the successor body of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) whose powers have been enhanced to empower it to perform.
First, it was some members of the public who sought to undermine the efforts of the EOCO as it commenced investigations into allegations of malfeasance in some State media organisations.
Only recently, similar efforts were made to attempt to stop the office from probing allegations of financial impropriety at the Ghana Football Association (GFA) which emerged largely from the sporting fraternity itself.
One of the key reasons advanced by the so-called protectionists of the independence of the GFA was that FIFA (the world soccer governing body) does not brook interference in soccer matters by governments and that such investigations as started by the EOCO amounts to interference and should, therefore, cease if the country is to avoid the furry of FIFA.
Some of the arguments have been stretched to indicate that money paid by private institutions as sponsorship to football authorities cannot be the subject of enquiry by bodies external to the football authorities.
No one can justifiably argue against the fact that the State has an uncontested right to demand and go for a process of getting the football authorities to account for every pesewa given to them, as they are officers who generate the expenditure.
Again, it is a huge fallacy to assert that money paid to the GFA by sponsors is private money and, therefore, the State cannot demand accountability on it.
It is worth pointing out that money paid by such sponsors to the GFA invariably gets back to those sponsors in the form of tax reliefs and other incentives given by the government.
These tax reliefs, in opportunity cost terms, are funds that the State could and should have taken from those companies into the Consolidated Fund to promote national development.
How, then, can one argue that such money is not State money or has no bearing on the State and, therefore, the government has no business demanding accountability on it.
If the GFA has nothing to hide, why is it resisting accountability?
Again, it must be noted that the GFA, as a legal entity registered under the laws of Ghana, cannot claim immunity from action by legally constituted bodies such as the EOCO whose mandate even entitles them to probe malfeasance in private entities that do not receive government money but money from the people.
We wish to urge the GFA, as a law-abiding entity, to recognise that notwithstanding FIFA’s non- interference regulations, it is not above the laws of Ghana and must, therefore, submit to and co-operate with all lawfully established probes.
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