According to a 14 November 2008 Ghana News Agency report, “Ghana's debt, including contingent liability from COCOBOD, at the end of last September stood at US$ 7,652.46 million, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, a Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance has told Parliament.”
The same report went on to say that: ”The debt, he said, was made up of US$3,990.38 for external, including that of the COCOBOD of US$ 118.75 million, and a domestic debt of US$ 3,662.” (End of quotation from GNA report.)
That genius, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei , who is our minister of state at the ministry of finance, is a gentleman, who owes his cushy sinecure to the nepotism of our “Hypocrite-in-Chief ” - and his irritating, disgraceful and divisive “Kokofu-football” politics.
Well, knowing the tactics of the current crowd, now in power in our country today, one just hopes that the phrase COCOBOD's "contingent liability" is not a euphemism designed to hide any super-fat fees (surely not as much as US$ 118.75 millions?) charged by the consortium of overseas banks, which arranged a hard currency loan (was it not nearly a billion dollars or thereabouts - if my poor old memory serves me right?) for the COCOBOD to purchase cocoa, locally, with.
Anyway, there are a number of this regime’s critics, who say (uncharitably perhaps?), that Dr. Akoto Osei was sent to that ministry, to make sure that the powerful rogues who dominate this regime, would be able to take advantage of the many opportunities that come Ghana’s way, for empowering its private sector, from overseas - and keep his sponsors au fait with such golden opportunities: as well as generally smoothen the path of the regime-crony oligarchs in whose deep pockets some of our rulers are ensconced, as they work hard to send their personal net worth into the stratosphere.
Sadly, and as usual, the geniuses on the opposition benches in parliament, missed yet another opportunity to nail the rogues into whose hands our nation has fallen - and finally force them to tell all of us, precisely how much our now heavily-indebted nation, is having to make, in regular interest payments, to those prescient overseas investors, who piled into the US$ 750 millions sovereign bonds, this regime issued overseas.
They must now make amends and ask exactly what this regime's sovereign bond regular interest payment plan is: and precisely what all that money was used for. Above all , they must demand to know, if it was used to create wealth that will generate revenues for our country, going forward, into the future: or if it was merely used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of our rulers – such as supporting their wanderlust-addiction habit.
They must do the same thing, too, as regards the GT corporate bonds, issued in London, on that company’s behalf, by Iroko: in that most egregious of examples of insider-dealing ever seen in the history of corporate Ghana.
Whiles they are at it, they must also ask that very honest gentleman, to break down, item by item, the US$72 millions in "other costs" that not too long ago, he proposed to subtract from projected borrowed money (some US$300 plus to repay GT'S "debt", if my memory serves me right!).
Once upon a time, dear reader, they apparently intended to saddle this and future generations of Ghanaians and their country, with yet another loan - in the hope of getting their usual hard currency kickbacks, from their regime-crony oligarchs in our financial services sector (according to some of their critics, i.e.!).
This was before the global credit crunch (in the aftermath of the meltdown in the financial markets of the West), when they felt they were the masters of the universe - and were talking glibly about raising some US$300 plus millions in the capital markets of the West, to repay GT's "debt"!
Curiously (and to the astonishment of the foreign carpetbaggers, apparently!), it is rumoured that this government, was so desperate to seal the deal (no doubt to save their “blushes” – nudge, nudge, wink, wink!), that it took it upon itself, to remove from GT’s wealthy suitor’s massive shoulders, that debt, which Iroko inveigled GT into burdening itself with, when the greedy rogues in this regime, struck that infamous takeover deal.
Yet, as it became obvious to many, shortly after the deal, Iroko issued those bonds on GT's behalf, without the company's managers having any clear idea of a solid revenue stream-providing product, to guarantee that the company would still remain stable financially, even as the regular repayments, which had to be made to those clever overseas investors, who bought the bonds as a good source of regular income, were made. So why did our nation have to assume that debt too? Can it not be argued that Iroko was criminally negligent in its role as the issuing house, to a certain extent? Incredible!
Apparently (according to the bush telegraph, i.e.!), the local professional advisors of the foreign carpetbaggers, who bought that stake in the company, are rumoured to have only got their clients to agree to the deal, after they got the government to agree it would pass a law indemnifying them from any future prosecution - to protect people from their side from any collateral damage: in case regime-change occurred as a result of the December 2008 elections.
Poor fools: Why, were those super-expensive local corporate lawyers they hired and paid zillions to, not decent enough, to tell them, that far from conferring immunity on any unethical actions, that law actually is an illegality - as our constitution enjoins all Ghanaians to fight corruption: not aid and abet foreign carpetbaggers, out to rip-off mother Ghana? Amazing!
They will “smell pepper” one day, for sure - to use our "Hypocrite-in-Chief’s” favourite crude phrase: "deployed" when he is feeling on top of the world and thinks he is invincible because he is Commander-in-Chief of our military and monarch of all he surveys in our homeland Ghana. Poor soul!
What power did his predecessor not have, once upon a time, I ask, dear reader? At a certain point in time, was he not the hero of June 4th 1979, no less? Well, today, what power does that poor, angry old man with an unhealthy beer-paunch, have? Incidentally, forgetting that Napoleon Bonaparte was height-challenged too, our sadly now much-discredited hero of 4th June, 1979 apparently thinks that short people don’t amount to much!
But I digress, dear reader. If even the smallest primary school children in our country today, know that in issuing bonds overseas, one must always have a plan that clearly outlines the sources from whence bond-issuing parties intend making regular payments to investors who buy those bonds one issues, why then are our opposition parliamentarians not asking the right questions about our unacceptably large external debt today?
Exactly when are the geniuses on the opposition benches in parliament going to ask this incompetent regime, precisely what plans they had in place, to enable them meet the regular interest payments on both classes of bonds, so far issued overseas: i.e. the sovereign bonds and the GT corporate bonds (if that too was shifted unto our nation’s shoulders - in that “one-way-street” deal, i.e.!)?
Have the opposition members not heard the bush-telegraph story that some of the clever politicians ruling us today, took a strategic decision to use overseas loans and bond issues as their preferred personal wealth creation vehicle - garnering hard currency kickbacks from the super-fat fees earned by their cronies in Ghana's financial services sector: the politically well-connected "deal-makers"?
Do they not know that it is the process through which they are said to have received kickbacks from the regime-crony oligarchs, those well-connected and powerful Ghanaian financial services sector Titans, who are said to have shared their super-fat fees with them: which is why they have piled up so much debt in such a relatively short time, since they graduated from Chinese hairdressing salons in the seedy backstreets of London, to the piranha-infested waters of the capital markets of the West?
Let the opposition wake up from its slumber - and pose the right questions in parliament, for once. Henceforth, let the VALCO fiasco be their eternal guide - and act to protect the interests of our country, at all times, going forward, into the future. Haba!
Those of us who wrote publicly against the idea of hedging that was mooted by some of our geniuses, as a way to protect our country from the spikes in the price of oil, were aghast that the opposition did not point it out to the well-educated morons who came up with the idea, that that was what ruined the now-defunct Ashanti Goldfields, in the end. They must stop overlooking such lunacies, in future, too.
Hmmm, Ghana - eyeasem oo! Enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem eba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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