Massa, I gather you now intend to devote your life to fighting for private enterprise (and one presumes the concept of “free markets”) in Ghana. As a believer in individual liberty myself, I wish you well in your endeavours – but you have your work cut out for you: as most Ghanaian entrepreneurs, sadly, are even more corrupt than the members of our political class (and that is saying something, is it not?). Yet, the plain truth is that the private sector can only become the engine of growth in our economy, if Ghanaian entrepreneurs use cutting-edge ideas that make their businesses innovative and competitive entities, which are truly world-class – because they are underpinned by corporate good governance principles: and, at a time of global climate change, guided by a “green” ethos.
I do not know just how well-versed you are in the subject of economics, but one does not need to be a genius to know that far from having a “free-market” economy, over the years (particularly during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co.!), Ghana has been a neo-liberal welfare-state in which the rich hijack the power of the Ghanaian nation-state after each regime-change: and use it as the key strategic building-block in their personal wealth-creation agenda. It has enabled sundry crooks send their personal net worth to stratospheric heights – every time their hirelings win power. As we all know, over ninety percent of those who made large fortunes under President Kufuor, for example, acquired their wealth by leveraging the patronage of a small and powerful cabal in the presidency. An infamous example was the incredible story of the offspring of one of our leaders, who was a declared bankrupt in the United States of America. He came back to Ghana to make a fresh start – and using what amounted to insider-information, secured a contract to supply electricity meters to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
That lucky golden-prince of the Kufuor-era made a cool US$2 millions profit from that egregious example of profiteering – facilitated by nepotism of the very worst kind. His facilitator-in-chief was clearly guilty of conflict of interest and abuse of power. The so-called “free-market” had nothing to do with his sudden wealth. Perhaps you were too busy during the period in Ghana’s history when your New Patriotic Party (NPP) held power, to know that our second city, for example, was turned into the tax-evading capital of our nation – as over the years greedy and dishonest businesspeople, succeeded in offloading container upon container (falsely manifested as goods in transit) there: with the active connivance of bad nuts within the Customs, Excise and Preventative Service (CEPS). The sad thing is that precious few of such well-heeled individuals even have the decency to pay their fair share of taxes to help in the development of our nation.Pity.
Another case in point, and example of the lack of ethics in the Ghanaian business world, is the unfortunate story of your Mr. Okudzato – who was apparently fulminating against those he believes were unfair to him (by ousting him from the board of the Bank of Ghana after your party lost power), when you launched your latest project. Perhaps the question we need to ask in his case is: How was it possible, that a gentleman who had been a member of the board of directors of the defunct Bonte Gold, which was an integral part of the shabby story of those monstrous Canadian carpetbaggers, became a board member of the Bank of Ghana – when in any civilized nation, such a record would probably have got him banned for life from being a company director, let alone serve as a member of the board of the nation’s central bank? Do you recall how those perfidious Canadians turned the village of Bonte into hell on earth for its hapless inhabitants – and also left a trail of debt when they departed our shores unceremoniously? Alas, Mr. Awuni, I am only an old fool who is gradually growing senile, and is further limited by a lack of formal education – but as a result of that tragedy, my head, luckily for me, is not filled with the “book-long-chew-and-pour” text-book theories that so constrict the thought-processes of so many of our educated elite. As a result, original thinking has helped guide me through the minefield, which life in our Byzantine society has become.
So take this piece of free advice from this senile old fool, Mr. Awuni: concentrate on fighting for the creation of a business environment in our country, in which dishonest practices are frowned upon throughout corporate Ghana – and above all, help our country fight those whose greedy ambitions threaten the well-being of our country and the welfare of its people: because they seek to appropriate the resources of our homeland Ghana, for themselves. In your quiet moments, ponder how it came about, for example, that Ghana Airways, which belonged to all of us, and had real potential (if only political interference had not been allowed to hamper it so!), was deliberately killed off, so that the airline industry equivalent of a Dodo, Ghana International Airlines (GIA) – whose real ownership, according to the conspiracy theorists in our midst, is hidden in a web of opaque offshore entities – came into being, just to enrich a powerful and politically well-connected few.
Do you realize that the madam-air-bottom-power lady who runs it has never ever run an airline in her charmed life before - and that she superintended over her last employers' business with such 'care' that the accountant made hundreds of thousands of US dollars literally disappear from the business? Why did GIA not even ask for something as basic as references - and make inquiries about her employment history in Ghana, for example? Such was the perfidy of some of your colleagues, when your party held power in Nkrumah's Ghana. Please also ask yourself how a few private individuals, fellow citizens, both, came to own part of one of the oilfields off our coastline. Thank God we were rescued from the clutches of your regime before further harm was done to our country by such unparalleled selfishness and unfathomable greed. Were we not definitely heading for a “Nigerian oil-experience” by stealth, under your regime, Mr. Awuni? Please fight with all your strength to prevent such a tragedy from ever befalling Mother Ghana – if you truly want to fight the good fight, that is. A word to the wise…
Tel (powered by Tigo – the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.
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