It is interesting to note that when the executives of a number of foreign oil companies called on President Mills recently, they all commended the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) as an excellent partner. As the cynics amongst us would ask, “Yes, naturally they would, wouldn’t they?” For, the GNPC is a very different animal today, from the shrewd and nationalistic company it was under Tsatsu Tsikata. He made sure that the GNPC was underpinned by an ethos that ensured that the company always acted to protect our nation’s interests in all its dealings with foreign oil exploration companies.
Today, thanks to the daft restructuring carried out by the stooges for neocolonialism who used to rule our nation yesterday, that relationship is a “monkey-dey-work-baboon-dey-chop” one, in which the GNPC helps those foreign oil companies to more or less successfully rip Ghana off, legally. President Mills must make it absolutely clear to all the foreign oil companies that Ghanaian democracy will not survive if the current arrangements between Ghana and the oil companies continue to remain in place.
A General Acheampong-type military coup to “seize the commanding heights of our economy” by nationalizing the oil and natural gas industries, is a real possibility at some point within the next eight years, if our political class (including President Mills’ regime) fails to improve the quality of life of ordinary people – and it will fail to do if it does not ensure that our country derives the maximum benefit from our oil and natural gas deposits.
The current “monkey-dey-work-baboon-dey-chop” agreements will simply allow the foreign oil companies to end up doing to us, what we have allowed the foreign gold mining companies to continue doing to us, thus far, since they got a foothold in our gold mining sector. The current situation as regards Ghana’s projected share of revenue from our oil and natural gas deposits is simply an untenable one – and ordinary people cannot, and will not, allow it to remain in place for long.
That is a non-negotiable issue of basic survival, as far as ordinary people are concerned. They are simply tired of having to make endless sacrifices for their democratic country’s sake – and want to enjoy the “democracy-dividend” too. They too want to live in a nation that can afford to provide them with generous ex-gratia payments and retirement benefits when they retire – after years of serving their nation faithfully. They do not want the enjoyment of such benefits to be restricted to the members of our political class only.
We cannot afford to let what are finite resources that Providence has bestowed on our nation (in order to give our country a second chance at becoming a prosperous nation finally – after years of endless suffering!), end up benefitting foreigners only. President Mills should reappoint Tsatsu Tsikata to run the GNPC – and give him a freehand to restructure it to protect our country from the sharks in designer suits, who control those foreign oil companies. The president must not allow himself to be beguiled by their charming ways and “sweet tongues.”
They are ruthless and greedy businesspeople out to make a killing at our nation’s expense. They must not be allowed to repeat the rip off of our country by foreign gold mining companies – a rip off that has seen those greedy monsters literally gang-raping mother Ghana for decades. He must ensure that they account for every drop of oil they extract – and get an elite force of our navy trained to ensure that no oil tanker departs our shores without being accounted for properly.
Posterity will never forgive President Mills, if he does not renegotiate the sharing of the profits from our oil and natural gas deposits on an equal basis – or nationalizing both industries if those companies refuse to listen to reason. He can always pay them fair compensation – by issuing them with Ghanaian sovereign bonds: on which they can collect ten years hence.
If need be, he must be prepared to get the best-resourced of the Chinese state-owned oil and natural gas companies to partner the GNPC to produce the oil and natural gas on a joint-venture basis – and also build refineries to process both to enable us derive even more revenue from both the oil and natural gas deposits. It is a great deal better to process them locally ourselves than to export them elsewhere to be processed for a profit by others. A word to the wise…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment