We have taken note of the concerns raised by the board of the National Service Scheme (NSS) as contained in a correspondence one member directed to the Chairman of the Council of State.
We wish to express our total opprobrium at the unwholesome happenings in the organisation.
We have lamented before about the manner in which the Executive Director, Vincent Kuagbenu, is upending the organization which, by all standards, shows trappings of a fiefdom with the gentleman at the top.
The disturbing story about the NSS has been in the public domain for a while now; yet, the executive director's bluff that nothing would happen to him appears to be holding sway.
The fallouts from Mr. Kuagbenu's administrative blunders in this critical state agency are just incompatible with its status as one responsible for shoring the nationalist spirit of the country's youth as they serve their fatherland.
Vincent Kuagbenu, who has constantly shown contempt to the board members appointed by the president, has waxed stronger by the day because we have learnt he derives his power and arrogance from a top man in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a result of which nobody can touch him.
He appears to be right after all. Barely, a week after the concerns of the board members were made public, he is said to have fired an accountant of the establishment in a growing incidence of arbitrariness, as if to send a defiant message to the board members and those who think he is unfit to continue being in office.
Sometimes, we wonder whether this man, whose lean CV shows how little exposure he has with managing public organizations, is the appropriate person to head the NSS.
Maybe, the president sees things differently, otherwise, we would have expected an auditing of sorts of the man's stewardship.
Having been catapulted from the Dzorwulu Special School to the high office of Executive Director with the accompanying trappings of the appointment, the newfound arrogance and changed lifestyle of opulence of the gentleman should not surprise us.
Ghana, we are constrained to point out, is saddled with a worrying incidence of the president showing indifference to the concerns raised about the performance of his officials.
If, indeed, the board members of the NSS are there to deal with policy issues and to ensure the appropriate functioning of the state agency in the nation's interest, we wish to state here and now that they are being thwarted from performing these duties. This is being done through the deliberate action of the gentleman whose anomalous running of the agency is the theme of this commentary.
This is another test case of the President's concern for the proper functioning of state agencies and abhorrence for cronyism. A crumbling of this crazy fiefdom would serve the best interest of the country.
Source: modernghana.com
