Wednesday 17 September 2008

SUREFIRE ROUTE TO SUPER-WEALTH IN GHANA: THE SOCIALISATION OF PRIVATE RISK!

Absolutely brilliant, Opanin! Perhaps you would like a "neat" one-line summary of the philosophy of greed of those who are wont to use the cloak of fantasies and sophistries such as "free markets" and "private sector-led growth" to hide their perfidy: which the continuing gang-rape of mother Ghana, represents?

Well, how about this: "The socialisation of private risk"? The Vodafones of this world come to our country and end up with a debt-free and grossly under-valued telecoms company, whiles those elected to protect the national interest lumber taxpayers with the company's liabilities.

To add insult to the injury thus caused us, the masters of the universe running our country then issue US$300 millions of sovereign bonds to pay for those liabilities - and brazenly tell discerning Ghanaians that as much as US$72 millions will be used to pay "other costs" - without telling us, item by item, precisely what those "other costs" are.

Opanin, do not be surprised if the "other costs" turned out largely to be the fat fees of the regime-crony Titans in the financial services industry of our economy, as well as the other well-connected professional advisers paid a small fortune for their self-serving advice to our country's rulers. These uber-wealthy whiz-kids now constitute the single largest source of hard currency kickbacks for the greediest amongst our rulers.

You describe the financial equivalent of the sleight of hand employed in Ghana, by the dishonest and greedy hypocrites amongst our present rulers, to take their already high personal net worth into stratospheric heights, perfectly (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=150026).

Incredibly, and to add insult to injury, they are now even empowering pretty young things in uber-short skirts - and showering their harems of those bright young things, with luxury compact four-wheel drive vehicles; Hollywood-style mansions in Cantonments, Ridge and East Legon; fat bank balances; as well as endless trips overseas!

According to the "bush telegraph" those of the greedy rogues who can keep it up for lengthy periods, apparently even spend some of their working hours "servicing" as many as three of the delectable bright young things a day, sometimes: when they wake up on the right side of their pillows!

My, and how they have prospered mightily using their political influence to leverage state-owned financial institutions such as: the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SNNIT); the State Insurance Company Limited (SIC); National Investment Bank (NIB); Agricultural Development Bank (ABD); etc., etc., to fund their private projects.

Having done so, they then turn round and insult the rest of us by calling us names and accusing us of envying them too, when we condemn their greed. What effrontery.

Do they think that we are all so desperate to become uber-rich that we are prepared to rip our people and our nation off, for that dishonourable end? No, no, no!

Opanin, the fact of the matter, is that many of the people they are now calling names (because those honest souls have now become financially-challenged, in the society with such huge disparities in wealth, in it - which they have succeeded in creating in eight short years, in our homeland Ghana, today), are far from being work-shy.

Many either have no jobs at all, because our industrial landscape has been allowed to be decimated by dangerous and toxic products dumped on our markets from China and elsewhere, or they simply don't have jobs that pay decent living wages.

In the hell-hole that they have succeeded in turning our country into, ordinary Ghanaians struggle to survive, even as their quality of life steadily deteriorates.

In spite of all their hard work many are growing poorer - in inverse proportion to the unimaginable wealth being piled up by the many politically well-connected "workaholics" running Nkrumah's Ghana, today! Hmmm, Ghana - ayeaesm oo!

Many ordinary Ghanaians are poor now Opanin, simply because they are too honest to resort to taking kickbacks and bribes: their good name being far more important to them than the acquisition of tainted super-wealth, at all costs.

Perhaps that is what escapes our "hypocrite-in-chief" and his acolytes - as he, his cronies and the scions of the family clans of the greediest and the most dishonest of our rulers, and their siblings, slowly inch towards their goal: of amassing a collective fortune valued in billions of US dollars - by stealth and at the expense of our nation and its people?

Hmmm, Ghana - asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!

No comments: