Getting Brazil's Marcopolo Into Ghana To Assemble Buses!

Last year, a visiting Ghanaian delegation (led by the vice president, H.E. John Mahama) was told by executives of Marcopolo, the Brazilian bus builders, that if Ghana could place an order for a thousand buses, they would build an assembly plant here.

As this has been designated his administration's "action year", by President Mills, perhaps the question we ought to pose to the geniuses around him, who are supposed to advise the vice president, is: what exactly are they doing about that Marcopolo offer to assemble buses here?

Marcopolo builds pretty good buses. Some were brought into Ghana as far back as the early seventies by the late Mark Cofie - and in addition to one I often see when travelling between Koforidua and Bunso, I am also aware of at least one more from those days, which still ferries passengers along one of Accra's tro-tro routes.

For what it is worth, here is a little lateral thinking that might help them get Marcopolo into Ghana. They should encourage the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) to set up a wholly-owned bus company, to participate in the new rapid urban mass transport system (RUMTS).

Together with the banks funding participating companies in the new RUMTS, that wholly-owned GPRTU company ("GPRTU-Rapide" wouldn't be a bad name for it!), could form a consortium to guarantee the purchase of 100 buses for each of the ten regions of Ghana, over a period of say five to ten years.

In exchange for that, they could negotiate a stake in the assembly plant, which Marcopolo builds in Ghana, on the strength of the consortium's guarantees. Sources with direct knowledge of the thinking of key figures amongst the GPRTU's national leadership, say the organisation would go along with such an idea, if the vice president's office suggested it, and helped to bring it into fruition. (Then there is the whole of the West African sub-regional market to play for, once the assembly plant is up and running!)

Well, I do know that I am old and senile, but not even I can be said to be oblivious, of the fact that if they can pull it off, it would be a marvellous legacy for their man and the Mills administration as a whole. As a rather cynical acquaintance said to me, an added bonus, would be the regular provision of free buses to take voters working in the urban areas, but registered to vote in their home towns, to travel home to vote in elections.

Surely, such a prospect isn't to be sneezed at - and is a tad more positive a move, than urging party supporters to prepare to fight to the death: just so that super-wealthy politicians, born with golden spoons in their mouths, can come to power and enable members of their family clans send their personal net worth into the stratosphere, at Mother Ghana's expense (Kufuor & Co. style)? Even a semi-literate fool like me in his dotage can see the sense in that. I hope they do, too! A word to the wise...

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