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Dr Ato Forson, former Deputy Minister of Finance , Ken Ofori Atta - Finance Minister
Dr Ato Forson, former Deputy Minister of Finance , Ken Ofori Atta - Finance Minister

Political scandal developing over a bond?

I was last here two weeks ago, and as they say, a week is truly a long time in politics. So many very important landmarks and things have happened in these two weeks as to fill a couple of good-sized books.

I choose to look at only three of these matters as captured in my title for today. But let me reply in some fashion to the two full-page rather interesting reactions I got published right here in this paper during the long absence of the column courtesy the Easter holidays.

Not surprisingly, the reactions were all in response to an earlier epistle about the recently-revived secessionist politics in the Volta Region which I had condemned in my piece on the matter.

I note with satisfaction, that I was assured in the second one of the solely developmental and not secessionist intention behind the agitation for the creation of a new region in northern Volta Region.

The first and diffuse reaction from Mr Kosi Kedem was however, quite puzzling. How is anybody defamed by saying the person has presidential ambitions? It is an honour and a privilege to be President of any country. Now to my ranting for today.

I can bet my last pesewa that most of us have conveniently forgotten that April 17, 2017, was the 50th anniversary of the most serious unsuccessful coup attempt in this country. Lieutenants SB Arthur and Moses Yeboah led their troops, then known as the  Medium Mortar Regiment, based in Ho, to Accra to overthrow the military regime of the National Liberation Council, who had themselves just a year previously, ousted President Nkrumah from office and installed the first of what was to be a series of military interventions in Ghana which hopefully ended on January 7, 1993 with the swearing in of President Rawlings, and the inauguration of the longest period of democratic, constitutional rule.

Ethnic co-operation

The direct effect of this attempted coup, whose reverberations we still experience in our civilian politics, was the collapse of the ethnic co-operation of the Ashanti and Ewe officers who staged the 1966 coup, personified by General Kotoka, the mastermind, and who was killed in the 1967 attempt, and General Afrifa who was his brigade adjutant.

Fast forward to the same day in 2017 marking 100 days in office of the government of President Akufo-Addo. In truth, what is significant about the first 100 days in office for a four year term? The only regime in history which we can so analyze was the first Franklin Roosevelt government in 1933 in the United States. Since that example, democratic governments everywhere had taken note of the fact that all governments are a continuum of previous administrations, at the very least, in its early days. In this country for example, we have had first quarter appropriations approved in the previous year, making it very difficult to outdoor a policy for which funds were not made available previously. In reality therefore, the first 100 days is a meaningless assessment. In the end, propaganda is now what is driving governance and not actual performance.

It is our collective reaction to the activities of pro-NPP vigilantes since the inauguration of this regime which would differentiate similar periods in our democratic history. I ask, what specific problems in this democracy are only amenable to solution by the existence of these destabilising groups? I cannot see any. Even more serious, in my view, is the association of our President who is a famous jurist trained in the finest traditions of democratic tolerance, with these groups.  As for equalisation, it does not work to our benefit comparing rather purposelessly for a simple reason. We don’t live in the past. Nobody does. We live in the here and now.

The most strident which I find curious is the comparison of the official political handling of the Montie 3 case of last year with the wanton brigandage of this year. Our current President made his debut in political office as our Attorney-General by leading the successful crusade in Parliament in 2001 for the abolition of our criminal libel laws relative to journalists. These were colonial-era laws amended over the years and used copiously by all previous governments. You would think then that his party would on iron-clad principle, be against the criminalisation of speech anywhere and everywhere. Can this inconsistency when the NPP in opposition hailed the conviction and jailing of the Montie journalists be defended by the party led by our President?

The bond issue

And now to a developing story which threatens to overshadow everything that has happened in the past two weeks and create its own narrative, the $2.2 billion bond raised by our government to restructure or re-profile our debt, whichever word you prefer. The stated value of this transaction, made possible by crafting a dubious narrative of debt and corruption, completely dwarfs and overwhelms the value of all hitherto political scandals in the 4th Republic. 

Neither the Ford Expedition saga, the Woyome judgement-debt case, the Ameri agreement, the drillship saga, or the numerous juicy scandals marking our political landscape come near in raw value and numbers to the figures covered in this bond issue. Indeed, this figure is far bigger than the GHS1.56 billion approved by our Parliament for the Office of President this year, this figure in itself being bigger than similar figures for the same purpose added up from the time of President Mills.

I will urge all my readers to grab a copy of Paul Erdman’s ‘’Panic of ‘89’’ to understand the arcane but suspicious world of these financial engineers and investors. You would be educated as to what motivates these events in the financial histories of nations from the days of the city states in Italy to the present.                                                    

 

 

 

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