PERHAPS THE GHANAIAN GOVERNMENT THINKS IT CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE OF GHANA, ALL THE TIME – BUT CAN IT EVER FOOL ALL GHANAIANS ALL THE TIME?

Quotation from the Chronicle newspaper (Wednesday, 12 November 2008): “The Trade Minister cautioned that the deal was very sensitive and that newspaper reports could force the consortium to back out from the deal. “My friend, we don’t want to lose this deal, it is a very sensitive matter,” Hon Owusu-Ankomah elaborated. He indicated that officials were briefing a joint committee of parliament, which consisted of both members of the majority and minority on the level of the development of the agreement, which was recently signed."

“He said, elsewhere such deals are shrouded in secrecy until it was sealed, but because the government wanted to be transparent, it sent the agreement to parliament and thereby making it public. He called on Ghanaians not to panic and that everything was under control...” End of quotation.

What perfidy! Is the US government’s current dealing with companies in that great nation’s financial services sector shrouded in secrecy? Is the search for a buyer for Alitalia, even in the land of the boorish “sun-tanned” Mafioso, enveloped in a miasma of mystery? Pure nonsense on bamboo stilts! Just what do these well-educated morons take us for, I ask, dear reader?

When Mr. Owusu-Ankomah says: ”My friend, we don’t want to lose this deal, it is a very sensitive matter...” precisely what does this too-clever-by-half gentleman mean? That, they are still trying to inveigle two ethically-run multinationals (who clearly aren’t interested in buying VALCO, whatever Mssrs. Owusu-Ankomah & Co. might say to the contrary!), into naming their terms, whatever they are: and be rewarded with VALCO, for a song, by a desperate government of Ghana - now anxious not to lose face, perhaps?

Well, there are those who might also say that what he really means is that the regime-crony oligarchs (or as the uncharitable might say, the well-connected crooks: the high net worth ”connection-men/women” who front for the few powerful rogues, who dominate this regime!), whom his colleague, the minister for parliamentary affairs, Mr. Benjamin Osei Aidoo, referred disdainfully to (in the barbed phrase: ”...If it turns out that the other party or the person or agent ... did not have the mandate, that’s a matter between the Ghana government and that other party..."), are now trying a last-ditch attempt, to salvage the deal - and preserve their ever-so lucrative “finder’s-fees” and their 10 per cent kickbacks: and save the government of which they are such prominent members, from any loss of face.

The Chronicle also says, in referring to the genial genius we have as our trade and industry minister: “He said, elsewhere such deals are shrouded in secrecy until it was sealed, but because the government wanted to be transparent, it sent the agreement to parliament and thereby making it public. He called on Ghanaians not to panic and that everything was under control."

Since Mr. Owusu-Ankomah says the government wants to be “transparent” about this shabby deal, can he tell us who are the lucky individual/s that his colleague the minister for parliamentary affairs, Mr. Benjamin Osei Aidoo, refers disdainfully to, when he said: ”...If it turns out that the other party or the person or agent ... did not have the mandate, that’s a matter between the Ghana government and that other party..."?

What exactly was the “mandate” of those blessed and incompetent, regime crony-oligarchs, who brokered this deal? Was it to do their usual thing - to go and look for carpetbaggers overseas, whom they could form a secret joint-venture with, using their usual special purpose vehicles, those opaque offshore companies: through which they launder their sundry privatisation "finders-fees" and usual 10 per cent kickbacks, in a deal cloaked with respectability, which was signed, sealed and delivered, as a "consortium" (and in this case christened “International Aluminum Partners”, no less)?

The trouble about this regime, more so than any other regime we have had in our chequered 51-year history, is that many of its members actually don’t seem to remember that wise Ghanaian saying: ”No condition is permanent.” Has Mr. Owusu-Ankomah forgotten just how powerful the former president was, once upon a time, in our history? What power does he have today? Zilch!

When they start acting as if they think that they are invincible because today they control the security apparatus, let them cast their minds back to the Kalabule-era that presaged the events of the 4th June 1979 military uprising - and recall just how the well-connected regime-crony oligarchs of yesteryear, were also grabbing everything in the land they could lay their grubby hands on. Well, how did that lot end up – and where did the unfathomable greed that drove them, land some of them, finally?

Our politicians must understand that they can fool some of the people all the time (especially those tiresome “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidons: who wear blinkers permanently - and are too thick to think, and too blind to see!), but they can never fool all the people of Ghana, all the time.

Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!