Monday 5 December 2011

MILLS REGIME: LISTEN TO GOOD FREE ADVICE - BEFORE IT BECOMES TOO LATE TO SAVE YOUR PARTY FROM DEFEAT IN DECEMBER 2012!

Today, I was saddened to learn that the investment firm, Rubicon, was teaming up with easyGroup (which is controlled by EasyJet's founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou), to work together to see if it would be feasible for them to set up a low-cost, no-frills airline for Africa.

A statement from Rubicon said "easyGroup will become a shareholder in Rubicon and will use the services of Stelios and easyGroup's experienced aviation management team to provide general strategic, management and branding advice on the feasibility of implementing a low cost, point-to-point, no frills, all jet aircraft business model for Africa."

Well, below, dear reader, is part of an article I posted on this blog on Wednesday, September 29, 2010, with the title, "LIQUIDATE GHANA INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES NOW – AS A PRELUDE TO SETTING UP A NEW NATIONAL CARRIER!"

In that article, I pleaded with the present regime (and not for the first time, either!) to contact the easyjet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, with the view to setting up a joint-venture, to replace Ghana International Airlines (GIA).

Needless to say, it was ignored. Just as one's humble advice to them to go to China and seek funding for infrastructure projects, was, not too long after they came to power in January 2009.

I actually said then, that I was pretty sure that China would happily give Nkrumah's Ghana as much as some US$20 billions - and told them that that was the best way of building the railway line from Tema to Paga. Below is part of the aforementioned Wednesday, September 29, 2010, article. Please read on:

"Why, dear reader, do so many of our politicians suddenly become hard-of-hearing, when they are offered good free advice - especially by those who seek nothing in return for such advice?

Take the case of that international airline industry equivalent of a Dodo, the so-called Ghana International Airlines (GIA), for example: Why does the present regime not simply liquidate it - and invite Easyjet to partner Ghana in setting up a new national carrier that will dominate Africa’s present mostly-unsafe skies, and make them safe for all Africans across the continent?

Would the outcome of such a bold move not be regarded as one of the best legacies of the administration of the hard-working and honest President Mills?

On the home front, would such a new national carrier, using the low-cost-carrier business model, not quickly come to dominate routes in and out of Ghana along the West African coastline, and to the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and elsewhere, I ask?

Easyjet is a well-run and profitable carrier with a much-respected founder (Stelios Haji-loannou) who believes in corporate good governance principles, and is also a socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneur.

Years ago, some of us pleaded with Kufuor & Co., to invite Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airlines to partner Ghana Airways in a joint-venture.

However, self-interest and greed, made them turn a deaf ear to our pleas. Branson, of course, is famous for not ever giving bribes to obtain business, anywhere on the planet Earth - so one can draw one's own conclusions.

Anyway, that massive drain on state resources (some transferred by stealth, and with legal cover, into private pockets!),GIA, is the unfortunate result of their self-serving idiocy.

The question is: Will those powerful individuals surrounding President Mills listen to us this time round – and move to invite leading low-cost carrier, Easyjet, to partner Ghana to set up a new Ghana Airways-Easyjet: and work together with its founder to get the African Union ( AU) to follow Europe’s example, and declare Africa’s skies a single free open-sky, accessible to all African airlines (and outside ones too!) to compete in for freight and passengers?

Surely, dear reader, that must be the best way of making Africa’s present mostly-unsafe skies, safe for us all to fly around the continent: for both business and pleasure?"

End of the quoted part from the Wednesday, September 29, 2010 blog posting.

The question is: Why did no one in this hard-of-hearing regime, not do something about this idea? Why do they never listen to good free advice, offered by patriotic individuals who want nothing in return, I ask?

If they had listened to some of us and publicly published their assets, as well as that of their spouses, for example, today, who would have had the temerity to mention the word corruption, in the same breath, when talking about their regime?

The Mills regime must start listening to those well-meaning individuals who offer them good free advice, before it becomes too late to save their confounded regime, from certain defeat in the December 2012
Elections. A word to the wise...

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