Opanin, this being Ghana, let me get your title right, to start with. I gather you are a: "presidential spokesman and press secretary to the president" - to quote a news reader from Metro TV, recently.
Let me also begin by saying that being a villager and a semi-literate farmer who can barely write and speak English, it is always with great trepidation that I write publicly about important personages such as your good self.
However, villagers, as you probably have heard, have a great sense of family - and are wont to make a fuss, when the well being of their family is threatened. It is precisely because of the welfare of future generations of my family that I write to you.
Opanin, my ears pricked up, when you mentioned the not inconsequential matter of the US$350 millions you said your government had "secured" from the US government, for electrification of rural areas in our country
Massa, we cannot pay for electricity in my village, even though there are frequent power outages - yet, your government of geniuses proposes to lumber future generations of my family with yet more debt to "electrify" villages in the rural areas.
For a fraction of that sum, your regime can get Mr Graham Knight's DIY Solar to provide every household in all the villages and hamlets in Ghana with at least 10 solar lanterns (converted by the villagers themselves from ordinary, cheap Chinese kerosene lanterns!), a solar mobile phone battery charger, and convert their dry-cell battery-powered radio sets into solar-powered radios. Ditto convert the smokey oil lamps used by kenkey and other food sellers at night, into solar lamps.
For good measure, you can also get Clive Norton's sustainable villages Africa (SVA), to develop one good sustainable community social enterprise in every village and hamlet in Ghana, so as to provide wealth for all villagers in Ghana - and turn our villages into model sustainable villages, to boot.
You could also approach the luminaries at "Biochar yahoogroups" to help SVA transform rural Ghana into centres for small-scale biochar production to enrich our soils to boost agricultural production, using the Swedish sustainability guru, Folke Gunther's mini-biochar oven.
Massa, if your government borrowed all that money for such ends, I wouldn't mind one bit - for, it would lead to an almost instantaneous improvement in the quality of life of every single inhabitant in rural Ghana.
Opanin, just what is it about the figure 300 that so fascinates your regime? Only yesterday, you were going to issue US$388 million (if my memory serves me right!) Ghanaian sovereign bonds to pay for GT's debt - until the Wall Street debacle, put paid to that expensive bit of financial lunacy.
If I remember correctly, out of that princely sum, we were also apparently going to pay US$72 millions "in other costs" - to quote that master of the universe, deputy finance minister, Dr. Akoto. Hmmm, Ghana, ayeasem oo - what other costs, I ask, Opanin? Can you break that down item by item, for the good people of Ghana?
Incidentally, why haven't Ghanaians been told which particular GT debt we are so eager to repay? Is it the Iroko-issued US$200 million corporate bond? If yes, did GT not have a repayment plan in place before it was inveigled by Iroko into issuing those corporate bonds in London? Would that not make it a case of criminal negligence on Iroko's part? Ditto the square pegs in round holes your government appointed to run the hapless GT - and to sit on its board?
Massa, how can the US, a nation teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, possibly find as much as US$ 350 millions of its rebellious taxpayers' money at this particular point in time, to lend to a profligate African dictatorship (albeit elected!), such as your government?
Well, the whole thing began to make sense to me, when you said that although the money had been "secured" from the US government, it would be coming from JP Morgan Chase: The selfsame bank that was accused by Enron shareholders of participating in the accounting scandal that led to Enron's collapse - and rushed, at the eleventh hour, to pay the shareholders US$2.2 billion on 14th June 2005, to avoid a court case, commencing the very next day.
It is also instructive that two years prior to the above-mentioned Enron shareholders' case (2003), J. P. Morgan Chase stood accused of financing and putting together a broad range of partnerships and transactions that contributed to Enron's collapse - and which hid debt from Enron's shareholders. In an out of court settlement, it agreed to pay US$162.5 million - so that criminal and regulatory investigations into its dealings with Enron, could be dropped.
Massa, even villagers like me constantly hear bush telegraph "stuff" that talks about a few powerful, dishonest and greedy crooks in your regime, who have set up opaque offshore companies in tax havens, with foreign fronts, to hide their ownership of those entities.
Apparently, that is where they hide their ill-gotten wealth. One gathers that foreign currency kickbacks (being their share of the gargantuan fees earned by regime-cronies in our Byzantine financial services industry!), from the many loans Ghana has been piling up under your regime, are laundered through those offshore companies. Hmmm, Ghana - eyeasem oo!
Massa, was it not just such offshore companies, which were the special-purpose vehicles used for the fraud and rip-offs perpetrated by Enron, with an assist from J.P. Morgan Chase - and for which they were indicted by prosecutors and condemned by regulators?
Incidentally, it is often said that nowhere else in world (apart from Ghana!), do so many incestuous relationships exist, between regulators and industry players. There are said to be more ex-central bank governors, who either own banks, or sit on their boards, here, than in any other nation on the planet Earth, apparently!
Massa, I know that (taflatse!) our "hypocrite-in-chief" will probably dismiss this as "rumours by lazy people who are envious of hardworking people." Well, since I have no "evidence" for the "rumours" let us leave all that aside.
You will also probably say that all the shenanigans at J.P. Morgan Chase that I have mentioned, took place before Jamie Dimon took over the bank. True - but just how much in fees is the bank charging Ghana for this EXIM Bank-guaranteed loan, if any, Opanin? Just what is the rate of interest they are charging us, too? Any grace period before we start repayments - and if yes, how long for?
Hmmm, Ghana - ayeasem oo: asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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