Ghana Telecom: Time To Call A Spade A Spade!

If the remarks attributed to the CEO of Ghana Telecom, Mr. Dickson Oduro-Nyaning, in the http://www.ghanaweb.com/ general news web page of Monday, 28 July 2008 are true, then the time has come for those of us who love our homeland Ghana, to put aside diplomatic niceties in our choice of words: and speak harshly and bluntly to those in our ruling elite, whom it appears think this country is theirs to do as they please with - simply because they wield power, temporarily, today.

Yet, they are the Ghanaian political world's equivalent of mere tenants with a full-repair lease: now temporarily ensconced in the lap of luxury - and living it up, and enjoying the life of Riley at taxpayers' expense, in the people's property, the Osu Castle.

Why, have they never heard that wise and pithy Ghanaian saying: "No condition is permanent." ?

Let them telephone him and ask our former president Mr. Rawlings and his grasping wife, who are still in a state of shock that once upon a time, Ghanaians were brave enough to reject their party.

For, never did they think that one day, they too, would become ordinary people again. Hmm, life - yet, today, incredible though it might be too many, including the former first couple, they no longer have their hands permanently on the levers of power in our country." So, Oga New Patriotic Party (NPP), I beg, make you remember say, one fine day, you too fit go. Enobe so?"

Opanin Boateng, one still simply can't believe that Ghana Telecom's beleaguered CEO, was actually quoted correctly. For, if those were truly his words, then he has raised the ire of many patriotic Ghanaians indeed. Hmmm, enti Kwame Nkrumah Ghana, paaa, eni?

Why, does he not even have the nous to realize that he has merely been given a sop - and told he will be kept on: but in reality, will soon discover that after a decent interval has passed, he will be ruthlessly turfed out of his comfortable office: where he superintended the downward spiral of Ghana Telecom, in air-conditioned glory, apparently: according to his own astonishing words - if the report in ghanaweb.com is true?

Poor man. Yes, they are going to keep him on: but in reality, only temporarily - so as to ensure that he too, does not take a leaf from the book of the clever and stubborn management of the Agricultural Development Bank (ABD): who fought off the perfidious rulers of our nation, who had wanted to hand over a national asset, to too clever by half foreigners!

If he has not cottoned on to all that yet, then he is even more retarded than the most uncharitable of his critics, say he is!

Perhaps he ought to ask those who know the full shabby Ashanti Goldfields story, just where the clever; suave; and ever-respectable gentlemen, who delivered that now-defunct entity, to the even cleverer South Africans, are, today.

God, one is just so incensed by the arrogance, which some of our current leaders are showing - in what is, after all, the dying "lame-duck-days" of their nearly eight years of economic mismanagement of our country of such gargantuan proportions.

Just look at the almost criminal way they have bankrupted the Volta River Authority (VRA) - because of their refusal, a few years into their tenure, to listen to good advice from technocrats, to provide our country with power generating capacity regularly.

And all that Alice-in-Wonderland economic shambles, incredibly, has taken place on the back of "breathing-space-buying" debt relief: that totally unexpected windfall, handed to them by providence, at the beginning of their tenure.

Would such a golden opportunity have been missed by any serious and
well-intentioned regime? Would it not have laboured hard and taken advantage of such good fortune - to turn Ghana into a truly prosperous "Krabewhe": an African equivalent of the prosperous and egalitarian societies of Scandinavia?

Yet, what do we actually see? Do we not see today's unedifying spectacle; that smoke-and-mirrors success story, so-called: that most revolting spectacle; that incredibly painful and hellish reality, called Ghana?

So, like the clever pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, we are told that life has never been better for us!

Are we not living in a country in which every day we watch an African tragi-comedy: one in which a handful of super-wealthy dollar multi-zillionaires, regularly risk their matronly wives' lives - by playing Russian roulette and nooky-nooky, with pretty HIV/AIDS ridden pretty-young-things, on the make: on whom they shower expensive gifts, such as juicy government contracts; posh compact SUV's and luxury homes? Hmm, Ghana - ayeasem oo!

Opanin Boateng, you and your ilk can bury your heads, as deeply in the sand, as you want.

But whatever you do, in ten years time, we shall all know just who today's philanderers and fornicators were - when their HIV/AIDS symptoms begin to show and they start dying off, one by one!

So let them continue to sleep with other men's wives and play nooky-nooky with over-perfumed spring chickens.

And these amoral creatures of the night even have the gall to say we all envy them: hmmm - as if we did not care more about our good names, than tainted riches. The cheeky sods!

So, sadly, in spite of all their new-found wealth, they live in perpetual fear of the twenty-three million Ghanaians: whom they have reduced to beggars - struggling impecunious souls trapped in the NPP hell-hole of today: the hell-hole nicknamed Ogyakrom - by 23 million witty and peace-loving beggars.

Opanin Boateng, yes, Ghana Telecom: "hmmm, 'massa', boyen nkomode! If the words attributed to him on ghanaweb.com's 28 July 2008 general news web page are true, then must we not wonder just why the masters of the universe now running Nkrumah's Ghana, picked Mr. Dickson Oduto-Nyaning to run GT?

Opanin Sarpong - do please try and outgrow that African neo-conservative ideologue's neo-colonialist straightjacket. Just go and "see things", to use local parlance, in Singapore and Malaysia - and see how state-owned enterprises, "papaabi", like Singapore Airlines and Proton Cars, which are world class corporate entities, are thriving as global players today: and of some considerable value.

And why, so? Because, Opanin Sarpong, they have honest and patriotic political leaders; a creative and honest business elite; and a disciplined society that values honest hard work, and integrity.

So, please, put aside that unhelpful African neo-conservative ideologue's neo-colonialist baggage, you are carrying - and which so wearies you: for, sadly, it is affecting your judgment.

Is it not the same economic equivalent of the alchemist's gold, which has brought even the most powerful nation in the world, more or less, to its knees?

Opanin, ever heard of that classic American capitalist pantomime, the two biggest mortgage industry giants of the US: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

And do you not hear commentators regularly saying that central bankers across the Western world are frightened men, now, most times?

My brother, please open your eyes - and if you cannot see, just ask those who aren't blind to tell you what is happening to capitalism today.

Is it not a fact that those nations, in which it is practiced, are in deep trouble: as the dark clouds of recession blights their economic landscape - and puts fear into the hearts of ordinary people?

Why, have you not heard that the US government is more or less propping up those two giants of the US mortgage industry?

So what is that unthinking, more-Catholic-than-the-Pope insouciance, and insistence, on market forces willy-nilly: and your absurd mantra that governments have no business being in business?

What do you think Singapore’s many prosperous world-class state-owned corporate entities and its massive sovereign fund are? Valued assets in Lee Kuan Yew's personal portfolio? Don't make us laugh - for, we face a national tragedy!Haba - adeni ena mu dwa yasumu eseyi, kruwaa?

Just where in the capitalist world would someone with such a "loser-mentality" be picked to run any decent-sized company, like Ghana Telecom?

The uncharitable here, would simply say, that the litany of woes this well-paid buffoon enumerates, is the tally of his many failures as a corporate leader.

As any primary school child in this country would ask him, in jest: "Oga, na who cause am?"Heavens above!

Where in the civilized world, would a CEO who had a dismal record of overcoming everyday operational challenges, such as clearing goods, be tolerated, I ask?

Quote the buffoon and loser: "Even the banks, which have for sometime now turned down our requests for loans to clear goods at the ports and or to pay for vendor services, are now running to us and offering cheaper loans..." unquote.

Where did they drag him from to come and head Ghana Telecom, one wonders?

When the smooth-talking financial whizz-kids from Iroko breezed into town from London, with their wealthy and politically-well-connected local high net worth, fellow super-respectable-rogues, in tow, to sell this clueless apology of a leading African business executive, the idea of corporate bonds, just what did this well-educated moron think?

Why, did he believe that those UK investors who piled into those bonds would be anything but "rigid" over the payment of interest due them? They were buying them to get an income to live on too, like all of us, were they not?

Surely, he did not think they were buying the bonds as a charitable donation to serve as a lifeline for him and his lazy; incompetent; and unimaginative executive crowd: given a cushy sinecure by the super-ruthless tribal supremacist cabal - that greedy; amoral and clueless cabal, which has dominated the ruling party, thus far; to run this vital national asset?

Well, if even someone who did far more for mother Ghana like Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata is now languishing in jail, then Mr. Dickson Oduro-Nyaning and other traitors like him, can rest assured, that one fine day, when Ghanaians bring the 4th Republic to an abrupt end: and usher in the lily-white 5th Republic, he will pay for his crimes against Ghana and the ordinary people of this country, as sure as day follows night. What utter drivel!

If this is the mindset of its CEO, is it any wonder that GT has got itself into such a fine mess? Any businessman worth his salt who issues corporate bonds to raise capital in London, to the tune of some US$ 200 millions, for whatever reason, always has a repayment plan in place, does he not?

So what was the plan GT had in place, to meet its interest payments to the so-called "rigid" investors: who had been brave enough, from what we hear from the hapless GT CEO, to loan his company all those zillions? And how much in fees did Iroko charge for that monstrous disservice to GT?

The question Ghanaians ought to demand an answer to, from these inane individuals, is: just what plan did they have in place, if any, to ensure that interest payments on those corporate bonds, did not place an undue financial strain on the company's finances - and thus threaten its financial stability and very future? What a bloody nerve some of those in our ruling elite have.

And just to save face for such morons, Ghana is going to lose a vital state asset? How can such a national tragedy be allowed to occur? And how can we possibly allow such traitors to get away with such perfidy?

Like the hapless Mr. Dickson Oduro-Nyaning, the clueless regime, led by the masters of the universe who now run our nation (ruin, would probably be a more apt word to describe what they are doing to mother Ghana!), who once sought the wherewithal from a seedy Chinese hairdressing salon in the shabby backstreets of London to develop Nkrumah's Ghana with, must also now tell Ghanaians precisely what plan they too had in place, to meet the regular interest payments, to those wily overseas investors, who bought those sovereign bonds.

We demand to know all the facts - as it is clearly causing this regime of many clever fools, a great deal of trouble. Is that not the real reason why they are selling off valuable state assets like Ghana Telecom: and so cheaply too, for? Pure nonsense on bamboo stilts!

That they issued the US$750 million sovereign bonds without any repayment plan is such an outrage, they really deserve to be lined up and shot.

And because this clueless regime; one full of well-educated imbeciles, doesn't want to lose face, we are supposed to sell off all our vital state assets, built up over the years, by the blood, sweat and tears, of ordinary people - so that the plain and painful truth about the mess our economy has gotten into, can be hidden from the rest of the world?

And do they actually believe that the ugly fact that our little super-royal emperors, are in their birthday suits, is not blindingly obvious to the rest of humankind?

Ordinary Ghanaians can see an Emperor without any clothes on, when they see one: no matter what the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidons choose to say over the airwaves of FM radio stations, across their nation.

Having waded into dangerous waters, where even angels fear to tread, today, our nation is finding it well nigh impossible to meet, the, quote that GT CEO loser, "rigid", unquote that supine GT loser, interest payments, on that idiotic US$750 millions sovereign bonds; ditto the GT corporate bonds.

And today, Ghanaians are being shown gross disrespect, by their leaders: who are adding insult to injury with their tiresome arrogance - when the chickens have finally come home to roost, exposing their foolishness in piling up yet more commercial debt!

Who but an imbecile would talk so negatively about his own stewardship? Just how many more Mr. Dickson Oduro-Nyanings, are ensconced in the corridors of power, in the state-owned sector of corporate Ghana, today, we wonder? Hmmm, Ghana - asem ebeba debi!

May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana! Hmmm, aja Nyame tweadianpong: Ah, Ghanapaaa, eni? Hmmm, aye asem oo!