Ken, Bugri, Addison & CO
Long before the rest of Ghana knew Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, I knew him. Years before the business community named him Ghana’s Most Respected CEO, I had, in an article in the ‘Weekly Spectator’, put him forth as a businessmen who wore his integrity like a badge in a market place populated by the corrupt and the crooked.
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My initial assessment of the man’s competence was by association. As a media consultant for Accra Brewery Limited, I had worked, albeit briefly, with James Akpoh (before he metamorphosed into Togbe Afede XIV), the company’s financial consultant. This was in the dying years of the last millennium. James was a scrupulously competent financial wizard who did not suffer idiots easily. So when, a few years after I got to know him, I was told that he was a founding partner of DATABANK headed by Ken Ofori-Atta, I wanted to know more about the latter.
My search led me to the discovery that one of the rooms in the Databank building was a church, a place not only for weekly corporate worship but where individual staff could occasionally repair to meditate. Of course, I know that even the devil quotes scripture and that he actually mingles with the “sons of God” when they gather in the very presence of God. Nonetheless, in a random sampling of views from the business community, I could hear only two words ringing loudly in description of Ken Ofori Atta: Integrity and Competence.
Not case of golden apple
Why have I gone on and on with this aspect of Ken Ofori Atta’s CV? It is to remind him that he is not just another Minister of State. Anyone who has been twice (or is it thrice) voted Ghana’s Most Respected CEO and spends time seeking God’s face has a duty to assure his admirers that his is not a case of the golden apple rotten at the heart.
I am referring to the allegation by Ghana’s Minority in Parliament that our Finance Minister “conveniently” prepared his business associates to have access to and benefit from the high 18 per cent -19 per cent interest on Ghana’s latest bond issue when they, (the Minister’s associates) bought up to 95 per cent of the US$ 2.250 billion bond.
I know that in situations such as this, many PR practitioners are wont to counsel silence. It may be wise professional counsel but I disagree. And my reason is as stated earlier: Ken Ofori Atta is not just another Minister of State. He has been an apostle of integrity in the market place too long to allow people to begin to wonder if cobwebs can exist in his closet! In his particular case, therefore, silence cannot be golden. What is the truth?
While at it, should this not be the right time to slip a note of caution into the hands of President Akufo-Addo while he still enjoys the goodwill of the majority of Ghanaians?
We know that no government is made up of angels and so one or two mistakes can be overlooked or pardoned. Those mistakes, however, do not include utterances such as those attributed to MR. BUGRI NAABU this week on the issue of plans to relocate the traders at Agbogbloshie.
Is it right for the Northern Regional chair of the NPP to openly counter the words of the Greater Accra Regional Minister who had used the occasion of the latest disturbances at Agbogbloshie to hint of plans to relocate the traders? It gives the wrong impression of a party – and by extension, a government – in which discipline is a stranger. His words constituted an incitement to violence.
Conditions at Agbogbloshie
Parties exist on the financial largesse of a few people. When I first encountered Bugri Naabu in the late 1980s in the ‘Ghanaian Times’ newsroom where he was a frequent visitor, he was one of the richest people in Ghana. But, is being rich or being closely associated with the President enough reason to allow a party official’s misguided outbursts to prevail against the word of a Regional Minister, member of government?
At any rate, can Bugri Naabu say he is happy with the condition in which the traders live in that part of Accra that has ranked Ghana as one of the 10 dirtiest cities in the world?
My third Man of the Week is lawyer PHILIP ADDISON, chair of the Ameri Deal Committee of Enquiry. The respected Attorney General, Gloria Akuffo’s, explanation why the committee had to be flown and accommodated in Dubai at the expense of the very company they were investigating, may stand up in a court of law. In a country ruled by a President who came into office on a pledge of transparency and incorruptibility, however, all arguments crumble in the court of public opinion. The last time I checked, public opinion brought the NPP into power in 2016.
Even if we are to excuse the Business Class tickets and plush hotel accommodation in Dubai, can (should) we excuse the disclosure that they accepted and did take per diem? In the first place, why should a committee investigating a case in which the NPP is an interested side, be composed of NPP loyalists and functionaries?
I think our President should be careful. Corruption is not only when project costs are inflated.